PRAYer…

An angel is a messenger from God. It was an angel who taught me the why behind prayer.

I have killed men, women and children and betrayed people I loved, poisoned my own body, broken promises, begged for relief and tried to outwork, outfight, outthink, outdrink and outlast the pain inside me. After everything I have done and everything that has been done to me, I have arrived at one conviction: a human being MUST pray.

I do not mean that every person must become religious. Religion can become one more hiding place. I do not mean that God is insecure and requires applause. I do not mean that prayer guarantees safety, sobriety, fidelity, healing, success or an explanation. I mean that a human being must enter reality as it is, stand before the One who is and become available to truth.

That is prayer.

Without prayer, I become trapped inside MY interpretation of reality. MY fear becomes intelligence. MY appetite becomes necessity. MY resentment becomes justice. MY shame becomes identity. MY control becomes leadership. MY violence becomes strength. MY escape becomes medicine. I can build an entire moral universe in which everything I want is reasonable AND everything I have done is someone else’s fault.

Prayer breaks the seal on that universe. Prayer breaks the seal on that universe. Prayer breaks the seal on that universe.

Leaders, and Disciples, are…rePETERs.

In prayer, I can still lie, BUT I can hear myself lying. I can hide BUT I know I am hiding. I can blame BUT eventually the silence returns my accusation to me. I can ask God to change everyone around me BUT sooner or later Jesus places His hand upon the locked door within me and asks, “May I enter here too?”…”Do you want to be healed?”

No! No! No! I do NOT.

The disciples watched Jesus heal bodies, command storms, confront evil, feed crowds and speak with an authority they had never encountered. Yet the request they are remembered for is not, “Teach us to preach,” “Teach us to lead,” or “Teach us to perform wonders.” They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” They had seen that His public authority came from a hidden communion (ONENESS). Before decisions, He prayed. After success, He withdrew. In anguish, He prayed. On the cross, He prayed. His life did not merely contain prayer. His life emerged from it.

N. T. Wright describes the Lord’s Prayer as an invitation into the prayer-life of Jesus Himself. That is the claim at the center of the book I have written. Jesus did not give us a password for obtaining outcomes. He gave us His own orientation to the Father, the Kingdom, the present day, forgiveness, temptation, evil, power and glory. He gave us a way to inhabit reality.

Tyler Staton writes about prayer as vulnerable encounter rather than polished performance. That matters to me. I KNOW performance. I KNOW how to produce competence under observation. Prayer begins where performance ends. It is the unguarded position. No weapon. No rank. No résumé. No defense counsel. Just the creature and the Creator, the child and the Father, the sinner and the Savior, the wounded man and the One who still bears wounds.

Prayer is not the prelude to the real work.

Prayer is the place where the real work becomes possible.