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[su_box title=”KBS Course: Hitting the Ceiling”]There is ample material here to develop a lesson on prayer for your group or personal study. If you wish to take your study even further, Hitting the Ceiling can be a five lesson study. Click on any of the rotating pictures to access the course. The courses can be purchased for individual study or presentation within a group.[/su_box]
Sometimes controversies leave you feeling as if you haven’t got a prayer. The high school in Liberty, South Carolina isn’t really that big. There are 636 students in grades 9 – 12. That ranks it about 8514th in size among all high schools, 142nd in the state.. About 130 students were planning on graduating that spring day in 2013. Roy Costner IV was one of those seniors.
[su_pullquote align=”left”]Our Scripture:
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working (James 5:16 ESV).[/su_pullquote]
According to NBC affiliate WYFF, Costner was the class valedictorian and had approached the podium with his pre-approved speech tucked in his hands. His next action stunned the gathered school officials, guests and family members. Costner held up the papers containing his speech and ripped them in two before the crowd. He thanked his parents for their upbringing and then began reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
a night to remember
Christian News reports that as Costner prayed, many of those gathered broke out into applause. “You couldn’t even hear him during the prayer anymore because everyone was clapping and cheering,” said Logan Gibson, who attended the ceremony.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Points to Ponder
As we begin to think about today’s lesson, consider
1) Has there ever been a time in your life where a prayer became controversial? What were the circumstances?
2) What are your feelings about the government restricting public prayers? Are there reasons that the prayers should be restricted? Under what circumstances should public prayers be permitted? What good do restrictions do? Any?[/su_pullquote]
It has been over fifty years since school-sponsored prayer in schools was ruled unconstitutional. More than 20 years ago the Supreme Court decided that public schools cannot sponsor prayer at graduation ceremonies. According to a Pew Research poll, 65% of Americans think attempts to keep religion out of schools and government have gone too far
Imagined prayer
Who would have imagined that prayer would be controversial?
Prayer is a characteristic that is shared among world religions and philosophies. But what is prayer? Why is it important? Why do preachers, teachers, authors and religious leaders emphasize its importance? Do you pray? How often? Why do you pray? What do you think will happen?
Let’s spend some time in this study series talking about prayer. Five lessons will affirm for us some very important biblical truths. Here are a couple of important things for us to consider about prayer so that we are on the same page as we begin the studies.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Words to Wrangle
Discuss these three concepts:
1) What do we expect when we go to God with a prayer?
2) How would you define “prayer?”
3) Look at a couple of the Scriptures on the far left menu. What do these Scriptures reveal to you?[/su_pullquote]
What is it We Expect When We Go to God with a Prayer?
In other words, what difference do we expect prayer to make? To whom does it make a difference – to those who know the right words to use? But also, what difference do I expect to play in the answer process? What do we expect to happen and to whom?
We expect Him to hear our prayer.
On the one hand we take this for granted. We think, “Sure God hears my prayers.” But on the other hand, we may rationalize that God could not possibly hear the prayers of “someone like me.” Therefore we aren’t surprised when we don’t receive the answer we seek.
We expect Him to agree with what we have to say.
It is our nature to want the people who listen to us to agree with us. Even when we praise Him, we expect Him to sit back, grin and nod, “Yes you are right. I am all that and I don’t believe that anyone has said it so clearly in years. Good job!”
We expect Him to follow our suggestions for resolutions.
We have thought about the situation and we are sure that we know best. “God I know you are busy. Here is what I thought would work best.”
We expect Him to answer our prayer quickly.
We don’t like pauses or silence in our conversations. If God doesn’t answer quickly, we are afraid that He is ignoring us. The image in our mind may well be that of a child trying to talk to his father while the father is reading the paper or working in the garage. We know he is sort of listening, but we know his mind is on something else. In some ways we may view picture our prayers as an interruption to God.
We feel this way because we draw our understanding of prayer on our understanding of how we communicate with other humans. If I speak a line in a physical conversation which expects an answer, and I don’t receive one, I feel ignored, disrespected or perhaps disgraced.
Let’s Define Prayer
How would you define prayer? If you are like most, you will quickly answer, “Prayer is conversation with God.” It sounds good, but did you know that the Bible never defines prayer?
We quickly understand the reality. Prayer defies every lesson of conversation and communication that we know. Prayer does not have a dialogue structure. We do not hear God’s physical voice during prayer. If there is no voice, there is no tone, pitch, pace or volume. There are no gestures. There is no eye contact.
No body language is expressed. As we define the communication process, there is no process.
[su_pullquote align=”right”]Conclusions to Consider
1) What new concepts about prayer have you learned today? How will they change your prayer life?
2) Share among yourselves prayer requests within the group. Take a few moments to go before the Lord in prayer.[/su_pullquote]
A biblical definition
Let’s try to agree on a definition that is biblical in nature. Prayer is obedient agreement with God. It is our way of agreeing with God’s plan for our lives and our obedient way of acknowledging God’s role or position in our lives.
In defining prayer in such a way, it at once speaks to several theological truths. Be acknowledging that it is “obedient” we proclaim that it is only through God’s invitation that we dare to speak to the Creator and Lord of the universe. In His presence, our inclination would be like John, to fall on our face in silence (Revelation 1:7). With Isaiah we would pronounce, “Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell with a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5). Instead we approach God’s throne of grace because He bids us to do so.
By using the word “agreement” we narrow the type and focus of the communication that will take place. Agreement is at the heart of the kindred words of “confession,” “praise,” and “petition.” We whole-heartedly agree with what God has said about human existence in general and our personal circumstance in specific.