Read Matthew 6:5-8 and do the exercises below:
- How is your private prayer different from your public prayer?
- Jesus says “do not keep babbling” (v7). In Jesus’ day a common pagan belief was that the gods could be worn down or overcome by incessant words in prayer. At the heart of this belief is the idea that we can gain control over God by praying the right way. What other approaches to prayer have you heard that basically teach this same idea (that if we’ll only learn to pray the right way God will do what we want)?
- What do you think Jesus means by, “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full” (v5)? What is the “reward” he’s referring to? What does this teach us about God and the spiritual life?
- Try this kind of prayer today. How would you pray differently if what you were seeking was merely more of Him? Find a time and place where you’ll be undisturbed and spend at least 20 minutes in prayer with God Himself as your only request. You can use scripture (preferably Psalms, Proverbs, or the end of Job), nature, music, or art as a catalyst of meditation. Or, you can just dig in and start pouring out your heart’s desire for God, asking Him to draw close to you in a discernible way. Pay close attention to the thoughts, images, and feelings that run through your mind. How is God communicating to you? Come back here and tell us about your experience.
By Henry Darger
First I want to tell you how I appreciate this journey you are leading us on. I Find I am learning lots of “stuff”.
Like ….
Here I am at the end of the day and I read your prayer challenge, and though I was tired I knew I could give God a few minutes(20 minutes? probably not, but I thought I’d go for as long as I could). I started to pray “Oh God more of you and less of me. More of you and less of me…” that is pretty much how it went for a few sentences, maybe 30 seconds and then I was day dreaming and distracted by the days events ..”Oh ya right” I continued, “More of you, God, and less of me.” I tried to stay focused but soon I was day dreaming again, this time I went all over the place, my present, my future, my mind was roaming it’s corridors. Suddenly I remembered what I was doing … “ahhh Cindy.. you’re praying!” “You’re focusing on God!” “Come back.” Though before I could get too upset with myself a thought struck me, Could this day dream be an answer to a prayer or should I say to a question I have been asking, but not really bringing to God? We’ll see if it in fact is the answer but I think I can safely say it was inspired. So while I thought I was alone, drifting in my thoughts I was in fact with my maker and He and I were enjoying each others company. God is so awesome.
That was my experience with – try this kind of prayer today -thanks
Cindy, thank YOU so much for joining us. We do most of our communicating about this face-to-face, but I want you to know your contributions here on the site are valuable and insightful. You truly are part of this series with us and we’re better off for it.