Asking

Our home group has been listening to Phillip Jensen's five talks on Christian Prayer. We thoroughly enjoyed listening and discussing this topic and found the talks a great encouragement to pray.

During the five talks, Dean Jensen emphasised that Christian prayer is talking to God and asking him for things. He said that we should always pray with thanksgiving, but that thanking God is not prayer, because to pray is to ask.

He repeatedly urged us to pray because God can do everything and is interested in us, in both the big things and small things of our lives.

The Lord's Prayer and other parts of the Bible show us that we should pray for things which God has promised to give, but should also share all our concerns with God, even if they are not mentioned in the Bible and are not specifically promised.

We should pray about the things God tells us he wants to do [God's aspirations] and also about our problems [our anxieties].

One of the things I pondered from listening to the talks was these words in James chapter 4:

You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

They reminded me of the short and painful time when I was a pastor. It was short and painful because some in the church decided that they needed me like a fish needs a bicycle!

Although it was pretty painful for me and my family, I guess it might have been worse for the congregation!

Once, one of the leaders of the congregation told me that he would have done all kinds of things for the church if only I'd asked. I got the feeling that he was saying that he would have done wonders, if I'd only pushed the right buttons.

I'm assuming he was saying he would have put in money for projects and maybe that he would have given assistance in getting them up and running.

Now I'm hoping that this is not what James is saying when he says

James 4:2-3 You do not have, because you do not ask.

I'm assuming he means that we ignore God and try to be self-sufficient and wonder why we fall down in a screaming heap and make such a mess of things.
I'm assuming he is not saying that God will only do things if we ask, because this has not been my experience with our generous God.
But I think he is encouraging us, as Dean Jensen was, to ask and not to be embarrassed to ask because what we ask is so trifling or such a big thing.

Learning to pray

Our Bible study group has begun to study Prayer, using passages in the Bible about praying, talks by Phillip Jensen and a Matthias Media booklet called Bold I Approach.
Jensen's first talk on Psalm 115 was very helpful.

I also appreciate what I have read in the linked article from Christianity Today. Here is a little of what the author, Ben Patterson had to say

... prayer is more than a means to get God to give us what we want. It is a means he uses to teach us to want what he wants. Holy Scripture in general, and the Psalms in particular, teach us who God is and what he wants to give.

When the members of his synagogue complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt, Abraham Heschel, the great philosopher of religion, replied wisely and very biblically. He told them that the liturgy wasn't supposed to express what they felt; they were supposed to feel what the liturgy expressed. To be taught by the Bible to pray is to learn to want and feel what the Bible expresses.

Those who practice this kind of prayer over time make a surprising discovery: As they learn to feel what the Psalms express, their hearts and desires are enlarged. They find that what they once regarded as strong desires were actually weak, puerile little wishes, debased inklings of what is good. Of course! Would not the God who made us in his own image understand better than we ever could what we really need? And shouldn't we ask him for it? As C. S. Lewis put it in "The Weight of Glory":

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Origin of Prayer of St Francis?

Belle prière à faire pendant la messe
Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l'amour.
Là où il y a l'offense, que je mette le pardon.
Là où il y a la discorde, que je mette l'union.
Là où il y a l'erreur, que je mette la vérité.
Là où il y a le doute, que je mette la foi.
Là où il y a le désespoir, que je mette l'espérance.
Là où il y a les ténèbres, que je mette votre lumière.
Là où il y a la tristesse, que je mette la joie.

Ô Maître, que je ne cherche pas tant à être consolé qu'à consoler, à être compris qu'à comprendre, à être aimé qu'à aimer, car c'est en donnant qu'on reçoit, c'est en s'oubliant qu'on trouve, c'est en pardonnant qu'on est pardonné, c'est en mourant qu'on ressuscite à l'éternelle vie.

First attributed falsely to St Francis in 1927 by French Protestants, it may well be a Twentieth Century creation, though some blame William the Norman for it.
I like it, but some friends tell me it is dodgy theology.
This site gives you the good oil on its origins.

I reckon if you base all of your theology on it, you're in trouble, but if you squeeze it back into biblical theology, it certainly reminds us to think of others before ourselves, which Jesus taught us to do. You need to look elsewhere [like the Bible] for your Christology and soteriology, etc.