Prayer Experiment
From the Series—OnStar Onboard
June 22, 2004This evotional continues our Onstar Onboard series.
Oswald Chambers said, “If you will give God the right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you.”
On January 30, 1930, a man named Frank Laubach began a spiritual experiment. He was forty-five years old and the experiment was the result of his dissatisfaction with his spiritual life. He decided to do something about it. He wrote these words in his journal. “Can we have contact with God all the time? I choose to make the rest of my life an experiment in answering this question.”
In 1946, Frank Laubach wrote about his experiment in a spiritual classic on prayer. One of the chapters is titled “Game with Minutes.” Laubach explained the game this way. “We try to call Him to mind at least one second of each minute. We do not need to forget other things nor stop our work, but we invite Him to share everything we do or say or think. Hundreds of us have experimented until we have found ways to let Him share every minute of our waking hours.”
What I want to do is turn Laubach’s game with minutes into a prayer experiment. I want share seven ideas that are really seven experiments. I think these experiments have the potential to totally revitalize and revolutionize your prayer life. I don’t expect you to try all of these ideas this week. But I’m hoping that at least one of them resonates with you and you put it into practice.
Begin the Day in Prayer
I heard a great prayer a few years ago. “Dear God, I’m having a good day so far. I haven’t lied or cheated or cursed or lost my temper. But I’m about to get out of bed and then I’m really going to need your help!”
If you’re anything like me, your day is usually determined by how it starts. Your emotional state or frame of mind will determine what kind of day you have. If I start my day in prayer mode I find that I’m more patient, more proactive, and more compassionate. I’m more conscious of what God is doing in me and around me. If I’m energized by my time with God then I’m energized the entire day.
Martin Luther once wrote these words in his journal. “I had so much to do today that I had to pray for four hours.” I think most of us operate the exact opposite way. If it’s a busy day God gets squeezed into the margin. Luther recommended the exact opposite. The more you have to do the more you have to pray.
I want to encourage you to come up with some kind of ritual that works for you. I think the word “ritual” has some negative connotations, but we all need rituals. Rituals are good. Brushing your teeth and putting on deodorant are rituals. I want to encourage you to continue with those rituals. What I’m proposing is that you experiment with some kind of Morning Prayer ritual. It may be as simple as saying “Good Morning” to God or praying while you shower.
Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” This isn’t rocket science. You just find a creative way to begin your day in prayer. In their book, The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz say, “Building rituals requires defining very precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times—motivated by deeply held values.”
The Psalmist had a Morning Prayer ritual. Psalm 5:3 says, “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”
Pray the Newspaper
That leads me to a second experiment. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of reading the paper as a spiritual discipline, but you can turn it into one. Instead of passively reading the paper, turn the news into prayers.
Philippians 4:6 says, “In everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your request to God.” Pray about everything!
Reading the paper can become a spiritual discipline. What would happen if we read the sports section and all started praying for the Redskins next season?
Turn Your Thoughts and Emotions into Prayers
This next experiment is critical to your spiritual health! You need to learn to turn your thoughts and emotions—positive and negative—into prayers!
I love the way the Message translates Philippians 4. “Celebrate God all day, every day.” In other words, turn those positive emotions into prayers of thanksgiving. And a few verses later it says, “Shape your worries into prayers.” In other words, turn your negative emotions into prayers.
We had a bizarre incident happen in our church office last week. Someone came barging into our office and let out a pretty unbelievable string of expletives. It could have gotten ugly. We actually had to escort him out and call the police. My blood was boiling! To be perfectly honest, I wanted to throw down. Yes, sometimes pastors want to throw down. For the next couple of days I kept re-imagining the incident in my mind, but in my imagination the fight actually happened. And trust me, we won!
Afterwards we had a time of prayer as a staff and I kept praying about it all week. Every time I thought about it I got angry, but I turned that anger into prayer. So here’s the great irony. If this guy hadn’t come barging into our office and let out a string of expletives I wouldn’t have been praying for him all week!
Here’s my point. This is like spiritual jujitsu. You can turn negative thoughts and negative emotions into positive prayers! In the words of the Message, “Shape your worries into prayers.” If you’re feeling angry or greedy or joyful or lustful or depressed or anxious turns those thoughts and emotions into prayers.
Pray for Every Person You Pass
Here’s another idea: pray for every person you pass. It doesn’t matter whether you’re jogging on the mall or sitting on the metro or standing in line at the grocery store or sitting in a meeting at work—you can silently pray for the people around you.
It doesn’t have to be an elaborate prayer. It can be a simple word or phrase or sentence—“bless them” or “reveal yourself to them.” Can you imagine the cumulative impact we could have if we simply prayed for every person we came into contact with?
Everyplace Frank Laubach went he would “shoot” people with prayer. Some people had no reaction, but others were obviously impacted. Some people would do an about-face and smile at him. Some people’s entire demeanor would change.
Six months into his experiment, Laubach wrote these words, “Last Monday was the most completely successful day of my life to date, so far as giving my day in complete and continuous surrender to God is concerned. I remember how I looked at people with a love God gave, they looked back and acted as though they wanted to go with me. I saw a little of that marvelous pull that Jesus had as He walked along the road day after day ‘God-intoxicated’ and radiant with the endless communion of his soul with God.”
This experiment can turn a commute or walk or run or workout or meeting into a meaningful spiritual discipline. It’s a great way to put I Timothy 2:1 into practice. “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone.”
Pray the Bible
Another idea is to turn Bible study into prayer or pray through a book of the Bible this week. I’d choose one book—a shorter book like Ephesians or Philippians. Read it everyday—that’ll probably take less than a half hour. And spend a half-hour reflecting on the verses that jump off the page and into your spirit. Underline them. Memorize them. Then pray about them. Turn Scripture reading into a dialogue with the author. The Bible becomes a conversation piece.
Pray for someone or something specific
Jesus said in Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I was challenged and convicted about a year ago by something Yonggi Cho said. He said, “God doesn’t answer vague prayers.” Let me explain why. I think vague prayers are cop-outs. God doesn’t answer vague prayers because they don’t require any faith and God doesn’t get the glory. I think sometimes we pray in such vague terms that there is no way God can or cannot answer our prayers. I just don’t think God gets excited about answering those prayers. Sometimes we pray in such vague terms we forget what we prayed for before we open our eyes or walk out of church.
Several years ago I heard an amazing story about an insurance salesman named Bob who accepted Christ and was discipled by a friend named Doug. Doug told him about the importance of prayer and Bob said he felt impressed to pray for Africa. Doug encouraged him to get a little more specific, so Bob named a particular country in Africa. Doug said, “Pray for that country in Africa every day for a month. If nothing significant happens, I’ll give you $500.” Bob started praying every day and towards the end of the month, he attended a dinner function where he met a woman from “his” country.
Bob found out that she was working at a medical center in “his” country and he asked so many questions that she invited him to come over and visit the medical center. Bob took her up on the offer. He went to visit the medical center and was so impacted by the lack of medical supplies that he came back to the states and wrote several large pharmaceutical companies. He secured over $1 million dollars in donated supplies. It was such a large contribution that he was invited to fly back to visit the center again—this time at the expense of the medical center.
The president of the country heard about the $1 million gift, and went to meet Bob at the airport. He took Bob on a tour of the capital city and his palace. During the tour Bob saw some prisoners and asked why they were imprisoned. The President said they were political prisoners who disagreed with the governing policies of his administration. Bob told the President that he thought that was a bad idea.
Bob returned to the states and a few weeks later he got a call from the State department in the middle of the night. They verified his name and asked him some questions. “Did you visit this country a few weeks ago?” Bob said, “Yes.” “Did you meet the President?” He said yes again. “Did you happen to see some political prisoners while you were there?” Bob said, “Yes.” Then the State department official said, “Bob, we have been working for a very long time to free those political prisoners. They have just been freed. What did you say to the President?” Bob said, “I just said it was a bad idea.”
Bob was later invited back to help the President of that country select members of his cabinet.
It all comes back to the reticular activating system. When you pray for someone or something specific you create a category in your mind and you’re aware of anything remotely related to that request. You’re on the lookout.
End the Day in Prayer
The last experiment is to end the day in prayer. I love Psalm 63:6. “On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.”
One of my routines when I get home late or go to bed late is to walk into my kids rooms while they are sound asleep. And sometimes I just pray for them.
In the same sense, long before you woke up this morning and long after you go to bed tonight, the Holy Spirit was and will be interceding for you. Romans 8:26 says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
The Holy Spirit begins and ends everyday praying for us! I think we can follow His example and experiment with different ways of beginning and ending our day in prayer. It may be as simple as saying, “Good night.”
Experiment
Before you start experimenting, here’s an email I received from an NCCer last week. Read it. Then do it.
Pastor Mark,
Last year, I was a part of a prayer experiment and it was one of the most amazing and wonderful experiences of my life.
Last January, I was telling some of my friends a story about a guy from my past who emailed me after no contact for three years when we were talking and having lunch in the food court at Union Station after church. One of the girls said, “You need to start a prayer list for him.” I said, “What?” She told me a story about a girl who went to NCC a while ago who used to organize these prayers lists where 10 people would pray for each other about one thing every single day for thirty, forty, or sixty days and amazing things would happen.
I was intrigued, but kept it to myself for a while. A couple of weeks went by, and I talked to some friends of mine and realized that we all had serious struggles in our lives with one thing—the men in our lives. After about 4-5 weeks of planning, and a lot of prayer, ten of us agreed to spend forty days in prayer for each other about one thing—the men in our lives. We started out with a day of fasting before the first day and then every single day for forty days we agreed to pray for each person individually. No requests were given out, we just prayed as we felt led.
Amazing things happened. After a few weeks, we started emailing or calling each other and saying, “I’ve been praying this for you—is that ok?” And we’d find out that what we had been led to pray for was 100% on target and perfectly timed. We found various commonalities between other people’s prayers for us. Not everyone knew each other. Not everyone even liked each other before we started this. But somehow, the group got past all of those differences and bonded through prayer.
At the end of forty days, we decided unanimously to do it again for another forty days. The first set of forty days was just trial after attack after trial. But believe it or not, I thought it was fun. We decided that the attacks meant we were doing something right which is why we decided to continue the prayer coverage for each other for a second round of forty days.
We saw victories in each other’s lives for big things and little things. For me, I was able to forgive myself for all the mistakes I had made in relationships of the past. I’m very hard on myself. Because I had failed at certain things, I punished myself by never allowing myself to move forward. I had bought into the lie that my past dictated my future and that I did not deserve anything better than the mistakes and failures of my past. When I began to heal from that and realize the truth, I knew that the only reason I could walk away from this is because I had nine other people praying for me that day and providing spiritual air cover for me. One girl specifically spoke a hard truth into my life about it, and helped me to identify where I had gone wrong. A week and a half after that day, my finance asked me out on our first date. Without this prayer experiment, I know without a doubt that I wouldn’t have been ready to meet him.
The habits that we started during those eighty days have continued for most of us. I still try to pray for at least three of the girls every day. And I learned how to really pray for myself.
I just wanted to tell you about our prayer experiment because a couple of us were talking after church yesterday about how excited your sermon made us. Our lives have been changed because of an experiment in prayer. And sometimes I just catch myself smiling when I think about how we’ll see the fruit of this for years to come.