Frank DeLalla

At this morning's prayer meeting I was feeling dull. I don't know if discouraged would be the right term, but I was feeling a bit whatever about the mission. I thought about why I was there at 6:00AM in a very cold building, and asked God to help me do my job as a believer and missionary--to pray for His name to be honored (hallowed), His kingdom to be established, and His will to be accomplished.

I turned to Acts chapter 4 for some encouragement and it stirred something in me that I began to think about yesterday afternoon. I was thinking about what really hinders me from talking about Christ with friends and strangers. I came up with two shameful reasons, so here is my confession:

People pleasing keeps me silent.

Not wanting to offend someone with my outrageous beliefs is a decidedly bad reason not to talk about what Christ has accomplished on my behalf and in my soul. It raises a few questions. Who do I respect most? Myself? The person I might offend? Both are idols if I put their respect above honoring Christ.

 

Pride keeps me silent.

 

Perhaps worse than the desire to keep the conversation polite is the desire to make someone think that I'm not one of those people. Not that I fear being known as a Christian, but that someone would think I was ignorant or simple (which is how many see us). Perhaps the best word for what I fear is that someone think I'm foolish:

 

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly (often translated "foolishness") to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

1 Corinthians 1:22-24 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly (or foolishness) to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Many people hesitate to talk about the Gospel because they are afraid they will be stumped by a hard question, or that the person they talk to might be smarter than they on various Biblical difficulties or philosophical questions. Its great to be informed, but in bearing witness to Christ is my own reputation for having answers really what I should be concerned about? Isn't that just valuing the same thing as "those who are perishing?"

So in a sense I'm more like the Corinthians than I am like Paul. For Paul, their love of a good argument moved him to focus entirely upon the cross and rest entirely upon the power of God's Spirit so that their faith, "might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5)."

So back to Acts 4. I found the cure for this worldly, sinful set of motivations in a powerful passage:

Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

God filled them with His Spirit and that gave them boldness. So I think I know what boldness is, but here is a solid lexical definition of what the Greek word behind it means:

Boldness: "an attitude of openness that stems from freedom and lack of fear (Friberg's Analytical Lexicon)."

Boldness is freedom. Boldness lacks fear. The Spirit of God sets you free to not care what someone thinks about you when you love them enough to tell them that Jesus is the only one who can save them from the wrath of God.  

Father, shake this place and fill me with your Holy Spirit.

Afterthought: So I finished this post the day after I started it, and had the blessing of seeing the kind of boldness I was thinking about in action in a news show. Franklin Graham told a few news folks that the country needed Jesus, plain and simple. (Hoped to get the clip, but I couldn't find it. Maybe soon.)

As I went to prayer this morning I wanted to get done so I could get on with the work I had to do.  I’m working on my lectures for a class that starts in less than a week and I have very little done!  Some of my own thoughts from last week’s prayer and fasting kept coming to mind.  Thoughts about silence and waiting upon God in the secret place.  I had an agenda for my prayer time: to finish!  What is God’s agenda?  I can discover that two ways.  First, by praying God’s prayer.  We learned about that at Saturday’s prayer and fasting meeting.  (Here is the handout.)  Second, by making space for God to speak in silence, meditation, and worship.  Silence and meditation are the first to go when prayer is hurried. 

There is another (fleshly) reason to eliminate silence and meditation from prayer.  I sensed in myself this morning some apprehension about what God might say or reveal to me in prayer.  I have some things that I have subconsciously swept under the rug and I sensed God picking up the rug.  So being busy and hurried may not be the reason for wanting to finish quickly after all.  Do you talk a lot and rush in prayer because God’ voice in uncomfortable for you to hear?  Me too.

Prayer and fasting week is over, but prayer and fasting is never “over”.  If you had a great week of prayer last week then pick up this week where that left off.  Sure, you can’t always devote the same focus to prayer and fasting (really?), but that doesn’t mean that such an experience with God is to be relegated to one or two weeks out of the year.  Weeks of prayer and fasting are meant to set a tone for the year, not to be the highlight! 

Now, pray, meditate, sit in silence, worship, pray the Lord’s prayer pattern.  Enjoy the presence of God.  Let Him speak without fear.  Let Him pull up the rug.  Let Him into the silence. 

Why don’t people pray (i.e. you and me, believers in general)?  It is because we believe deep down in our hearts that something else is more important, more interesting, more pleasurable, more fun, more pressing, more rewarding, more profitable, more delightful and more reasonable.  We believe that some other activity—sleeping, working, watching, playing, drinking, fidgeting, laughing, talking, complaining, copulating, sinning, reading, exercising, web-surfing, drooling—is somehow more important and will bring about the sensations we desire.  We believe in the end we will be more happy, joyful, satisfied, safe, secure, loved, lauded, lusted after, healthy, successful, sensible and sound than we would have been had we taken a moment to speak with and be spoken to by God.  We don’t pray not because we don’t have spare moments in which to pray, but because we don’t really think that any good will come of it.  True, we may in our minds believe that prayer is beneficial, and talking to God is a great privilege that Christ has purchased for us.  Our hearts have not embraced reality and our lives go on much the way they always have.   Our hearts have an insatiable desire to be amused and have not learned from our minds that God’s glory merits and rewards those who take time to gaze upon it. 

Why don’t we pray?  Idolatry.  What do we do?  Adultery.  We play the harlot with things that for the most part are not evil in and of themselves.  They become evil by letting our hearts neglect God’s presence for them because of the rewards we believe they offer us in return for our devotion.

Does our prayerlessness ultimately uncover our understanding of prayer?  Yes, but more importantly it uncovers our true understanding and image of God!  Prayer is talking to and listening to God.  The idea that something would be more precious to us is not surprising, but is utterly inexplicable and indefensible.