Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

How can we live more prayerful lives?

Published by

Matt Stone

on

Sincere-prayer

How can we live more prayerful lives? How can we live so prayer is more than a practice we pursue in moments of quiet but a lifestyle we pursue in our everyday activities? A big part of the problem is our double mindedness, our distractedness, our attempts at multitasking which ultimately mean we are not giving our full attention to anything, at anytime. Our society if plagued by attention deficit disorder. By way of contrast, a prayerful life means seeking the will of God, moment to moment, and giving this our full attention in the midst of our activity. So as we walk, just walk; as we work, just work; as we play, just play; as we plan, just plan; and seek to align our will with God’s will in all of this.

26 responses to “How can we live more prayerful lives?”

Gary

2015-11-05

If you use prayer to seek the will of God, how do you know when he gives you an answer?

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-05

Well, when it goes against my own will that’s often a clear enough sign 🙂
Especially when it turns out to be more in line with scripture than my own

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-05

Ok, that makes sense.
But how about situations where what you want isn’t sinful or against Bible teaching? For instance, let’s say you are dating someone and you really like her and you want to know if it is God’s will to marry her. She is a good Christian, she has a wonderful personality, a pleasant temperament, comes from a good family, and you are physically attracted to her, and you have been dating for a significant amount of time. You pray and ask God to tell you if she is His choice as a life’s partner for you. Do you expect God to tell you or indicate to you either way or do you believe that God doesn’t get that far “into the weeds”; he expects you to use your own judgment?
Thanks.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-06

I have found a good rule of thumb for discernment is the 4S test:
– Is it in accordance with SCRIPTURE, or not?
– Is it leading to fruits of the SPIRIT, or not?
– Have you seen any SIGNs that suggest for or against?
– What do the SAINTS say? Have you run it past some trusted mentors?
The first is the most important, but it can sometimes be a blunt instrument. So, especially for important decisions, I look for green lights in a number of these areas. If you get green in some and red in others I’d take it as a caution signal and look deeper. For a life partner I’d definitely be looking for fruit of the Spirit growing in my life with her. Is my experience of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control deepening through my relationship with her? I’d take that as a good sign. As a personal example of using this approach, I once had a choise between two jobs and wasn’t sure which one to choose. I was getting blanks in the first three areas, as in, no red lights through any of them but nothing more than that. So I separately asked 3 wise and trusted friends how they thought I should choose. All 3 came back suggesting the same job, for similar reasons. So I went with it, and I didn’t regret it. Each situation is different. God doesn’t always give a clear answer in advance. I think the main point is though, be open to God’s guidence when God gives it. Mostly we miss God’s guidance because we’re not listening in the first place. We’re too distracted by everything else.

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-06

That seems like a very good way to make a decision, but I don’t see of what value prayer is for this situation if you still need to ask a couple of (human) friends for advice. It seems to me that anyone, believer or nonbeliever could follow the same advice regarding choosing a life mate and arrive at the same result/conclusion. Let’s see:
1. Does she agree with my value system, which is based on (the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, progressivism, etc.)?
2. Does her behavior manifest the particular belief system that she (and I) profess?
3. Are there any troubling signs? Flashes of temper that she tries to suppress in front of me? Untruthfulness with others? Laziness in her job?
4. What do people in my close circle of friends, who have been around her frequently, think of her?
It seems to me that anyone could use a similar version of your “life partner evaluation strategy” and not need to pray about it. Would you agree?

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-07

I forgot to comment on your last statement:
“Mostly we miss God’s guidance because we’re not listening in the first place. We’re too distracted by everything else.”
What should we be listening for to know that God is speaking? If we are asking our human friends for advice, as you suggested regarding choosing a life mate, how can we be sure that God is speaking through them and not that they are simply giving us their honest, human opinion?
Do you hear an internal voice speaking to you that you believe to be God? Some Christians claim they do. But I have always wondered, how do you know that it is God speaking to you and not simply your own internal dialogue with yourself?

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-08

I grew up in an evangelical Christian home. I prayed to Jesus at age nine to forgive me of all my sins and to be my Lord and Savior. I was told that as a child of God, a Christian, God would speak to me “in my heart” with a still, small voice and that he would “move” me and “lead” me to do his will. All I had to do was to pray to him and to seek righteousness.
I never heard God once. I never felt “moved”. I never felt “led”. I felt and heard nothing.
However, all the evangelical Christians around me were hearing God and feeling God all the time! What was up? What was I (it had to be my fault, after all) doing wrong?? So I prayed harder. I repented of my sins harder. I repented of sins I wasn’t even aware of just to be sure. But nothing.
In my teens, I came to a point in my life where I seriously questioned if I was a Christian. I must not be if God is not speaking to me. So I prayed to Jesus again: “Lord, PLEASE save me. PLEASE be my Lord and Savior. I commit my life; everything I am and have to you. PLEASE speak to me.”
Nothing.
In my mid-twenties, I finally decided that either there was some sin that I was harboring in my heart (about which I was completely unaware), or, God just didn’t want me. So I left the Church. Now that I am older, I have had time to look at the evidence, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it was never me…it was always God. Here is the evidence I found:
Disease and Illness: Christians have the same rates of disease and illness as non-Christians. Jesus doesn’t seem to answer prayers for healing. The percentage of non-Christians, including atheists, who recover from illness is the same as that of Christians. Christians who claim that they were healed due to prayer cannot prove that their healing was not due to some other factor, such as the medication that their doctor was giving them or pure coincidence. If Jesus really heals people due to prayer, Christians should have a much higher healing rate. They don’t.
Accident rates: Christians have just as many accidents as non-Christians. There is no evidence that Jesus provides any better protection for Christians behind the wheel than non-Christians, including atheists. So asking Jesus to keep you and your family safe on your road trip doesn’t seem to be of any benefit.
Job promotion: Is there any evidence that Christians are promoted in their jobs more often than non-Christians? I doubt it. Praying to Jesus to give you that promotion or that raise that your family really and truly needs doesn’t seem to work.
Food poisoning: Most Christians pray before every meal for God to bless their food. However, no study I am aware of indicates that Christians have fewer incidences of food poisoning or that Christians are healthier than non-Christians. Jesus doesn’t seem to respond to prayers for “blessing” food.
Child Safety: This is a big one for most Christian parents. We pray to Jesus to keep our children safe. Studies, however, demonstrate that the rate of accidents, injuries, disease, and death among the children of Christians is no different than the rates for the children of non-Christians. Praying to Jesus to keep your children safe is not effective.
But wait a minute! Maybe it isn’t Jesus will that Christians have lower accident rates, lower death rates, higher job promotion rates, lower food poisoning rates, or higher child safety rates! Well, that might be true. But you have to wonder, why do Christians bother praying for these things if God isn’t going to answer these prayers at a rate any higher than pure chance??
But here is the nail in the coffin for the question of whether or not prayer works: Every evangelical Christian I know believes that God has a life-mate chosen for him or her, and that if each individual (true) Christian will sincerely pray to God and sincerely seek righteousness in his or her life, God will bring that special “one” to them. But here’s the problem: Christians, and even evangelical Christians, have the same divorce rate as non-Christians!! Jesus just doesn’t seem interested in answering prayers regarding choosing a life mate!
What?
How could it be Jesus’ will for Christians to marry the wrong person, when they had so sincerely prayed to God to lead them to “the one”? Why didn’t Jesus lead them to someone whom they would never stop loving and never want to divorce? How could it be Jesus’ will for Christian children to live in broken homes, without both their father and their mother? Now maybe you will say that it is not God’s will for Christians to divorce; that God did lead them to “the one”; that they should just stick it out and make the marriage work. But are we really to believe that the high divorce rate among evangelical Christians, who are some of the most devout people you will ever meet, is because they didn’t sincerely pray to God to save their marriages?? Come on.
Prayer doesn’t work, folks. The evidence is overwhelming. All the Christians around you who tell you that God speaks to them, moves them, and leads them, are simply on an emotional rush…listening to the still, small voice of…themselves!

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-08

Gary, I believe your comments deserve a well considered response but dont have the time right now. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-10

Dear Matt,
It is my belief that praying to Jesus is no different than a child talking to an imaginary friend.
A young child suffers a psychological trauma. His psyche is highly traumatized. He is anxious and fearful. To cope with his anxiety and fear, he invents an imaginary friend; a very powerful, very wise friend. The child comes to believe that his imaginary friend will keep him safe. His imaginary friend is always with him; always available to talk to.
The child learns not to be too demanding of his imaginary friend. He doesn’t ask for a new bicycle on the doorstep everyday, only the basics: that the imaginary friend will keep him and his family safe and that he will have a good day. However, once in a great while something very unexpected, very extra-ordinary happens that the child attributes to the kindness and powers of his imaginary friend. These extra-ordinary events reinforce the child’s belief in the reality of his imaginary friend.
Rarely some children are able to convince other children of the reality of their imaginary friend. The child promises the other children that his invisible friend will protect them; will help them have “good days”, and will occasionally do something for them that is really extra-ordinary, kind of like a miracle.
All the children who believe in the imaginary friend derive a great deal of psychological and emotional comfort from their belief in the existence of the imaginary friend. However, is it healthy for the children to maintain this belief system? Some child psychologists might say that for the emotionally traumatized child, allowing them to maintain their belief in their imaginary friend is ok…for a while. But would any professional mental health care provider recommend allowing a child to continue to believe in an imaginary friend for the rest of his life? I don’t think so.
So when a grown adult claims to have a “relationship” with an imaginary friend; a friend whom they believe talks to them in their heart in a still, small voice; who “leads” them and “moves” them to do this and that, and from whom they derive considerable psychological and emotional comfort, should we shatter the illusion of the benevolent, imaginary friend by demonstrating to the adult that his friend is not real?
Yes. I believe we should.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-10

The above understanding is quite foreign to me. I understand God as the deepest level of existence, as the nothing from which everything comes. Nothing is more real.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-10

In response to comment #5. True, a non-believer could follow the same advice to a large extent. I don’t differentiate in a black and white fashion between Christian and non-Christian approaches to discernment. God may act apart from others but God may just as well act through others, even non-Christian others. Scripture itself affirms this. I think the difference is more subtle.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-10

In response to comment #6. That’s partly where I was going with my comment #2. When the opinion that comes back is ego-comforting, chances are it has a more human origin.
Personally? I have heard an internal voice on a handful of occasions, but far more often I have heard God on a more sub-vocal level. I am not sure I can explain the experience with words. How do I know it’s not my own internal dialogue? Only with practice. Oh, and the fact that amazing things have happened when I actually paid attention. But mostly from practice.
But don’t hear me as saying my experience is proscriptive for how people ‘should’ hear God. Because it is clear to me that the experience is different for different people. I know many Christians who have never heard from God as explicitly as I have yet who are no less Christian than me. Indeed, I consider it more likely God’s consideration for my weakness, that I need more explicit prompting than some. God speaks in many different ways and I would counsel anyone seeking God to be open to surprises.

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-10

If there is no evidence that the Christian God answers prayers to him by Christians at any higher rate than the prayers to other gods of Muslims, Jews, and Hindus, why do you believe that the “amazing things” that have happened to you confirm the validity of prayer to Jesus?
If you prayed for truly extra-ordinary events to occur on a daily or almost daily basis, and those very extra-ordinary events occurred as you prayed for them to occur, THAT would be evidence of the effectiveness of prayer to Jesus. But I don’t think you can make that claim, can you? What I will bet you will claim is that a handful (five or less) really extra-ordinary things have happened in your life that seemed to be a result of prayer to Jesus.
A handful of extra-ordinary events happens in the lives of a large percentage of people, including atheists. These rare events are not proof of the existence of an invisible deity.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-11

That understanding of prayer is foreign to me. It’s too … utilitarian. Prayer, for me, is only secondarily about God’s gifts. Prayer is primarily about God, who is our greatest gift. That’s why I exphasise listening, not asking. And my own experience of God, which is more wonderful than I can easily describe, is evidence enough for me.

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-12

If your Faith gives you peace and comfort, great…as long as you don’t use it to threaten others with punishment from your god for the thought crime of not believing in him.
Peace.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-12

What evidence do you have that I would be even remotely inclined to behave that way.

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-13

I assumed. I assumed that you believed that Jesus is the “only way”.
I apologize if you are a liberal/Christian universalist. I then have no issue with your belief system.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-17

I am inclined neither towards coercion nor universalism but something else again. I do believe that Jesus’ way of generosity is superior to judgmentalist / karmic approaches but that very assertion precludes threatening or judging others. Moreover, the path I follow does not preclude learning from other religions (and irreligion) even though I find that which Jesus offered lacking in other paths. Does that make sense?

LikeLike

Reply
Gary

2015-11-18

Hmm. I’m not sure.
Do you believe that Jesus was Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament?

LikeLike

Reply
gary

2015-11-21

Imagine your outrage, Matt, if you were to hear the following news report:
An armed police officer stood by and watched as a group of men brutally attacked, tortured, sexually assaulted, and then murdered a five year old girl. When the officer was asked why he stood by and did nothing while this horrific crime was committed, he responded, “She deserved it.”
Would any decent human being accept this police officer’s justification for his inaction in preventing this terrible injustice? No. In fact, most decent people would want the officer charged as an accomplice to the assault and murder.
So why do Christians let Jesus off the hook for the exact same crime?
If the Christian belief system is true, for thousands of years, little children have been dying horrific deaths while Jesus sits on his throne in heaven, watching it all happen, but doing absolutely nothing to stop their suffering. Every day at least one small child drowns. Every day at least one small child dies in a fire. Every day at least one small child is blown to pieces in a war. Every day at least one small child dies of starvation or thirst. Every day at least one small child dies of disease. Every day at least one small child is beaten and abused. Every day at least one small child is sexually molested. And every day at least one small child is brutally murdered.
And every day, Jesus does nothing…time, after time, after time.
Jesus is either helpless and therefore not God, or Jesus is a sick, sadistic monster, dear Christian.
While you joyously give thanks every evening to your loving Jesus for blessing your food and keeping your family safe, little children all over the world are suffering horrific deaths. The stark truth is, Christians, if Christianity is true, Jesus is an accomplice to some of the most brutal crimes known to mankind. How in the world can you worship such a being?

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-23

Re #19. Yes, but saying that means radically reinterpreting the God of the Old Testament, for it is also saying that Jesus gives us a clearer picture of God than Moses and the prophets.

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-23

Re #20. Well, see that’s just the thing, I don’t see Jesus as indifferent to human suffering. Quite the contrary, Jesus chose to engage in our suffering in the most personal way. Nor do I see Jesus as powerless, for God will end all suffering in the end, but it requires a different understanding of power.

LikeLike

Reply
Gary

2015-11-24

Wow, how do you turn the God of the OT into the loving, compassionate Jesus?? That would be like turning Adolf Hitler into Mother Theresa.
Impossible, Matt.

LikeLike

Reply
Gary

2015-11-24

Re #22. Tell that to all the little children who are, at this very moment, being brutally beaten and murdered while Jesus sits on his throne in heaven and does nothing.
(By the way, I have a very high opinion of Jesus. I don’t think Jesus would sit by and do nothing while a children is being abused. Jesus would have stepped in and rescued the child. But since Jesus is dead, he can’t help children being abused today. The Jesus that Christians have created is non-existent. It is a legendary superstition.)

LikeLike

Reply
Matt Stone

2015-11-24

Try looking at YHWH through the eyes of Jesus rather than Moses

LikeLike

Reply
Gary

2015-11-25

Obviously, Jesus had a very high regard for Yahweh. So how could someone as good, kind, and loving as Jesus respect and honor a brutal butcher like Yahweh?
Well, if Jesus was an all-knowing God, his decision to honor a genocidal butcher would be immoral and unforgivable. We would be forced to condemn Jesus as evil. But if Jesus was just a man, not a god, although it is hard to excuse his failure to recognize the immorality of Yahweh and his failure to condemn such an evil Being, maybe we have to cut him a break…just as we do the hundreds of thousands of Christians today who praise and honor the butcher Yahweh.

LikeLike

Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply