Lord, Teach Me to Pray

Prayer is an art or a skill. It has to be learned and practiced. It has to be honed and polished. Does that surprise you? Look around you. Whom do you know who seems to have power in prayer? Does your own experience in prayer seem weak and ineffectual in contrast? It is not because that person is more loved by God than you are. It is because that person has, with patience and perseverance, become skilled in the art of prayer.

When a person is born with an innate talent for music, that talent must be cultivated if it is to reach its fullness. A person may be born with a gift for music, but that doesn’t give the person the ability to read notes or play an instrument. The skilled musician is one who has taken lessons, watched and imitated the masters, studied, and above all, practiced. Practiced, and practiced, and practiced. The mature musician has mastered the basics. The fundamental laws of music have been drilled into him through diligence and discipline. Finally, the basics have become part of him. As automatic as the blinking of his eye. Then he begins to find his own, unique style. The music becomes his focus rather than the fundamentals. He is able to use the fundamentals to compose his own music. He has honed his skill and has moved from diligence and discipline to delight.

You, my dear friend, when you were born into the kingdom of God, were born with the innate talent for prayer. It is encoded into your spiritual DNA structure. It is written into your spiritual genetic blueprint. No one, living or dead, has more prayer potential than you do. The fact that you have picked up this book and have read this far tells me that you are beginning to awaken to that innate talent. There is a stirring, a restlessness that pushes you to look for answers. It is the Spirit Himself, calling you to develop the art of prayer.

When we learn how prayer operates, we discover that prayer is simply responding to God’s love, saying ‘yes’ to what He offers, receiving from Him all that He desires to put into our lives. “Prayer... is the opening of a channel from your emptiness to Gods fullness.” (E. Stanley Jones, Abundant Living)

Prayer is more than the words that come sandwiched between “Dear God” and “amen.” Through prayer you can live in a continual intimacy with Him that satisfies all of your eternal longings.

Lord, Teach Me to Pray

More than anything, I want to be a skilled and trained intercessor. I want my life to have optimum effect for eternity. I want continually to progress in the art of prayer.

There is only one Prayer Teacher. Jesus Himself will teach you to pray as you yield yourself to Him. Look to Him. Be alert to His leading. He delights in teaching you to pray. Right now, enroll in His school of prayer.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean. All rights reserved.)

Count the Cost Then Count the Reward

Teri Horton bought an abstract painting from a junk store in California for $5.00. Ten years later, she discovered that the “junk” she purchased was likely an original Jackson Pollock painting and could be worth more than $10 million. Let’s project our imaginations into the future and suppose that Ms. Horton has been paid $10 million for the painting that cost her $5.00. Let’s imagine that she is sitting in the palatial mansion the money has afforded her and that she is dripping in jewels and draped in fine designer clothing, none of which she could have afforded previously. Imagine that I ask her, “What did that Jackson Pollock painting cost you?” How do you think she would answer that question? I think she would say, “Cost me? It cost me nothing. It gained me $10 million and afforded me everything I own.” When the profit far outweighs the investment, we call it gain. The initial cost is swallowed up in the benefit it obtains, and it shows up on the “profit” side of the balance sheet.

Jesus challenged those who would be His disciples first to count the cost. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish’” (Luke 14:28-30). He made it clear that to be His disciple would cost a person everything. But Jesus also challenged those who sought to be His disciples to count the reward. After you count the cost, then count the reward. “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). When the benefit far outweighs the cost, we call it gain.

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (Phil. 3:7-10).

Do you see what Paul is saying? He said that he gave up everything he valued because when he compared it to “the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” everything he valued was rubbish. It was nothing. It was less than nothing. The worth of everything he valued was swallowed up in the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. If we could ask Paul, “What did radical discipleship cost you?” I think Paul would answer, “Cost me? It cost me nothing and gained me everything.” (Jennifer Kennedy Dean. All rights reserved.)

Wordless Prayer

All noise all the time. Noise is more portable than ever before, and becomes more so every day. Thanks to a never-ending parade of gadgets, we never have to be left out of the noise-stream. Yet, it is in silence and solitude that we learn to synchronize our hearts with His. The very silence that has become so elusive in our world is the essential element for you who want to move from “saying prayers” to living in an abandoned intimacy with the One for whom your heart is made. Richard Foster says, “Contemplative Prayer immerses us into the silence of God. How desperately we in the modern world need this wordless baptism” (Richard J. Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home).

The reason for my wordlessness is so that He can breathe His words into my thoughts. His desires become the mold in which my desires are shaped. I wait quietly in His presence so that He can speak order and form and truth into the chaos of my frenetic life. I come to Him without words for no reason other than to be sculpted and chiseled by Him until, moment by moment, I begin to look more like Him. I have no agenda except to rest in His embrace, to let Him do the grace-work in me while I savor His nearness. Out of my wordlessness, words come. But they are words whose origins are in Him. He floods my silence with His living voice. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean. All rights reserved.)