Prayer as Discernment

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

This morning I am giving you a technique for discernment in prayer. Therefore this sermon is of a different style than I have given so far. In fact, I gave you a hand out. It has been my experience that prayer can have a profound impact on our relationships. It is in our relationships with others where life is most joyous and frustrating, passionate, beautiful, painful and complex.

So here is a technique for discernment prayer. Discernment in a real life struggle may come all of a sudden, but it will usually not come immediately. In other words, discernment will take some time, likely a series of prayers over days, weeks or years, depending on the problem. We may grow into understanding God’s perspective or we may just get it, all of a sudden.

The primary purpose of prayer is not to change the mind of God, but to change our heart, mind and soul. John Calvin said we pray "that our hearts may be fired with a zealous and burning desire ever to seek, love, and serve God." We pray, not because we have faith, but because we need faith. In prayer we seek to gain both a fuller understanding of God and of ourselves.

So here we go –- 10 steps:

1. The first step is to check into the present tense. What is it that you are going to pray about? What is the problem? How do I feel? What do I think? Who else is involved? What do I think I want, now? If you were going to respond to this problem now with out prayer, what would you do? What is the current state of your faith? What is the current state of your faith? You may call this laying your cards on the table up front. We all have bias. What is the bias we take before God? We surely do not know all our biases, but we can try to acknowledge what we can. Most prayer technique begins by acknowledging God. And you can do this first if you would like. There will be a lot more acknowledging of God along the way. Yet often we are so consumed by ourselves and our issues that it helps to just start right there, and kind of back your way into prayer.

2. Step two, pray that God would open our hearts and pour out his grace upon our whole lives. Too often we want to say, "OK God, you direct this part of my life, but ignore this area over here. If we want prayer to be answered, then we need to be willing to let God move through every area of our lives.

3. Third, humble your heart. Acknowledge your weakness, your blindness, your sinfulness, your confusion. My experience is that most people are more blind than they are sinful. At times we are willfully blind, we do not want God to give us eyes to see and know. But most of the time people’s biggest problem is confusion, not outright ill will. The problem next in line is a lack of courage. Changing our behavior provokes fear, and we need courage to overcome our feelings of fear. "Holy Wisdom, I open my heart, mind and soul to your grace. I come before your presence as a blind coward and I need your help."

4. Now that you have checked in with yourself, asked God to pour out her grace upon you, and confessed your weakness and confusion, then you can ask God a couple of questions: Is there something obviously different between what I want and what God wants? In general I recommend a very open mind to what God wants, but there are some things that we should not be praying for. For instance, "Lord, please let Stanford win the national championship." Or "Lord, I really like cocaine and alcohol, and I want my friends and family to accept my addiction and take care of my financial needs forever." A woman had been sexually abused at age thirteen by her minister. She told me that her minister said God sent her to him. "Lord, send me a girl to be my sex slave, and don’t let the wife and church find out" is probably not a prayer God wants to hear.

5. Another question you can ask: Is this situation an inevitable development and the outcome simply a matter of time? "Lord, I don’t want to pay my taxes." God’s answer: "Stop making money," or "You are free to not pay your taxes until April 15^th."

There are life transitions which usually happen whether we like them or not, but the timing may be less clear, and our feelings are likely all mixed up. For instance, you may have mixed feelings about letting your children go on a date and drive a car. We usually have difficulty deciding when to retire from certain physical activities, when to retire from a career, when we need to move into assisted living, or cease to drive. Our prayer may be, "Is this the time?" Most of us have to be knocked over the head with the answer. Most of us will need some help from others – we may get mad at those people.

It is hard to give up our youth, our power, our independence, the comforts of success. Think about Moses. He gives up a life of a king and drags the complaining Israelites around the wilderness for forty years, pulling water out of rocks; then he has to retire before they reach the Promised Land. Who could blame him for throwing a temper tantrum: "Are you kidding me? I put in all this work for you and you are not going to let me bring it on home."

One day I decided I had had enough of watching my kids skate board. It looked too fun. I just had to try it myself. There was only one problem. I am forty. My prayer was "Lord, I want to skateboard." God’s answer: "Concrete is hard, and you don’t bounce like you used to." God also changed the nature of my prayer. "Lord, I want to skateboard" became "Dear God, help me accept aging with grace." Again, powerful prayer will not so much get us what we want as much as it will transform who we are.

6. Another question we can ask in discernment prayer is does this issue really warrant this degree of anxiety, anger or sadness? Maybe we just need to lighten up and let it go. Is there something else that this issue is related to that the family would rather avoid looking at? Are we choking on the gnat and swallowing the camel whole? Very often, when a small issue has caused a lot oft turmoil in a family, the turmoil is related to more than just that one issue. A young man begins to have cold feet as the wedding date approaches. The issues may be deeper than his feelings for his fiancé. He may have a role in his family of origin, and he is afraid of what will happen to the family if he lets it go. Or, maybe his mother’s dislike of daughter-in-law has less to do with the qualities of daughter-in-law than with mom’s fear that she is losing connection with her son.

Father is a benevolent dictator, all powerful manager and controller, savior and fixer, at home, at work, in City Politics. His close brother gets cancer and he is there to offer support. Father is not very close to mom. She works a lot and is probably an alcoholic. Father has a special relationship with daughter who has recently gone off to an expensive college. Daughter is the one who senses father is not as strong as he tries to come off as and is actually emotionally needy. On the one hand, daughter wants to maintain this special relationship with father, while on the other hand she wants to grow up. To the father, growing up is disloyalty, while at the same time not growing up is disloyalty. She talks about freedom and independence.. She smokes pot, does some coke and ecstasy, and shows up at her dad’s work with her tattoos, her tongue and nose pierced, and talks of dropping out of school. She wants her freedom, she says. She experiments with a lesbian relationship and is quick to tell mom and dad. Dad is distraught over his daughter, and calls her regularly to lecture her about how she should behave and how much they sacrifice for her. Ironically, doing those things that she says demonstrates her freedom serves both to keep dad involved and also to maintain her dependence on him.

The cancer in brother doesn’t know that it is supposed to be controllable by father. Dad’s brother is close to death, on life support. Daughter makes a half hearted attempt at suicide. Father leaves his brother’s hospital bed to go after his daughter. They pull her out of school and bring her home. Daughter is confused. "Dad won’t stop lecturing me. All Mom and I do is fight. They won’t treat me like an adult. I just want my freedom. Pot is no big deal. Mom and Dad need to accept that I am a lesbian. Dad is hurting so bad. Dad needs me here. I can feel it."

Originally the prayer is that Mom and Dad would accept her for who she is, which meant a pot smoking lesbian. What became apparent through prayer was that the issues of pot and sexual identity were small potatoes. The big issue was a daughter’s unacknowledged sacrifice of her own life to maintain a connection with Dad. What Daughter came to realize through prayer was that she was not Dad’s Savior and he was not hers. She had the freedom, not only to smoke pot, but to not smoke pot, to do well and to grow up. Her prayer changed from "Stop my Dad from judging me," to "Give me the grace to accept my father the way he is. Let me not judge him or myself, for we are both saved by your grace." Very often the rebel is closer to Mom and Dad than the perfect child. Ironically, this rebellious child does see that the rebellious behavior serves to keep connected. But this girl was able to pray, and through prayer to see that the immediate issue was not the main issue. She looked at the main issue with God, quit her addiction and went back to school. The issue of her sexuality became a non-issue. It would be funny if it weren’t so true. Many kids struggle to learn that doing what is good for them is good, regardless of whether or not Mom and Dad show they like it in both word and deed.

7. In what way am I acting like God? In what way am I acting like an ostrich? Are there areas of my life surrounding this issue where I am taking more responsibility than is warranted? Are there areas where I need to accept more responsibility? Again, key to discernment in prayer is open-mindedness. Reinhold Niebuhr is credited with one of the great prayers of all time: "Lord, grant me the courage to change the things that can be changed, the grace to accept those things that cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference."

8. Nowhere is an open mind more important in prayer than when questioning about our strengths and weaknesses. It is almost always the case that our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. Are we quick to speak out against injustice, then it is likely that one of our problems will be jumping to judgment too quickly. Are we quiet and peaceful, always quick to help other get along? Then we are likely to have a problem speaking up when justice demands it, and tend to back down in the name of peace at that very moment when we should say "Here I stand, so help me God." Are we big on freedom and grace? Then we could probably use some discipline and regulation. Are we big on discipline and excellence? Then we probably need a little freedom, relaxation and flexibility. Whenever I see one of those stickers that say "NO FEAR," I think, "that guy may be willing to bungee jump off a giant bridge, but he is probably scared to death of some relationship in his life." How do our strengths get us into trouble?

9. Is the suffering I am going through the result of changes that will lead to further liberation or is it the result of the same pattern and the same slavery? There is wilderness on the way to liberation and the Promised Land.

Rabbi Edwin Friedman, in his book Generation to Generation: "Family process in church and synagogue talks about chronic conditions in families. They tend to cycle up and down, from good to bad over and over. What people often don’t recognize is both the up and the down are part of the same problematic cycle. The single mother allows the father of her child to seduce her and they are close for awhile. He says he is a changed man. Single Mom gets as much attention as she can, giving him even more than she gets in hopes that he will finally understand that no woman could give as much as her, until the man feels smothered and runs away, back to his mother and some casual acquaintance. After multiples attempt at breaking free, Single Mom is coached to try a different tactic. When she chases he runs. What if she tried not to chase? But he always gets worse at first, and her new behavior is given up. Single Mom swears this is the last time, and that she is not going to let him disrespect her again. But every time she seriously tries to stay away she goes into what feels like an ever falling depression. She feels she cannot live through the pain and reaches out and gives in to him in desperation." Friedman sys that after a non-symptomatic family member is helped to reduce his or her anxiety and to change his or her way of adapting or reacting to the symptom, the symptom bearer will probably get worse. "The problem will appear to get worse at first, and it will take a longer period to go back to its previous best. It is not possible," says Freidman, "to eliminate any chronic condition without going though a phase that is acute. Acute phases are more painful, and most family members would prefer peace to progress." But if we can sustain the courage and faith in God’s ability to carry us through the wilderness with the new behavior, then the condition will often get better than before. In other words, we will become freer, healthier individuals and families. We will make it eventually, to the Promised Land.

10. Finally, prayer doesn’t end when our word do. The tenth step in discernment prayer is to give God time to answer your questions and shape your prayer. You need to give yourself time to hear God’s response. You can read scripture that you feel God is calling you to read. But also important is simple time and silence. Let God go to work on you. You notice that Jesus takes the whole night for prayer. He is not blabbing the whole time, but he is in God’s presence the whole time. Here is a good general rule that has helped me greatly: if there is a huge issue or fight that screams for your immediate response, stop yourself and do not respond. Let the rest of the day and night go by. Pray the whole next day and night. Then you will be ready to respond by the second morning.

In our passage from Luke, Jesus has presented himself as a prophet who puts love as the highest above all other laws. This radical stance has already threatened the ruling elite who are infuriated and discuss what they might do to him. The scene ends there and we wait to see what happens next. Then one of those days, Jesus goes out to the mountainside to pray, and spends the night praying to God. Jesus calls for a change to the old patterns and gets a reaction. Will he back off? Will He have to take up arms? Will he compromise and try to become part of the establishment? Will he work for peace without justice? Will he decide to go out into the wilderness and form his own private society? Surely all these options are going through his mind. He puts them before God and then listens all night. God leads him to appoint apostles, twelve of them, as in the twelve tribes of Judah. That is like appointing twelve governors in a twelve state country. Not only is it a political move but it is a practical one. He solidifies an organizational structure that can exist beyond him. The he goes with the twelve and delivers the most radical sermon yet. Sometimes doing God’s will, will not result in you winning the lottery or becoming President. Sometimes listening to God will lead us to suffering. That is entirely possible. Just keep checking: "Is the suffering I am willing to endure, or is the blessing I want going to promote liberation and righteousness, peace and justice or not." Suffering in and of itself doesn’t save, but that is next week’s sermon.

1. Check into the present tense. What is the problem? How do you feel? What is your gut reaction? If you were not going to stop and pray how would you react now?

2. Pray that God would open your heart and pour out his grace upon your whole life.

3. Humble your heart. Confess your weakness and blindness.

4. Ask; is there something obviously different between what I want and what God wants? Keep an open mind.

5. Is this situation an inevitable development and the outcome simply a matter of time? Should my prayer be to change it or accept it?

6. Ask: does this issue or problem warrant this degree of anxiety, anger, or sadness? Is there something else that this issue is related to that the family would rather avoid?

7. In what way may I be taking more responsibility than I should be (playing God), and in what way may I be avoiding responsibility that should be mine.

8. With regard to this problem or issue, what are my strengths and weaknesses? Could my strength be a weakness too? Or could my weakness be a strength or an area for growth?

9. Is the suffering I am going through the result of changes that will lead to further liberation or is it the result of the same pattern and the same slavery? There is wilderness on the way to liberation and the Promised Land.

10. Give God time to shape your prayer and enable you to hear her answer.