The Practice of Prayer
Brian Fletcher
I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Intro: The Olympics are awesome to watch. Greatest athletes in the world competing against each other. Watching Michael Phelps swim has been exhilarating and to see the USA win the men's relay was unbelievable. But as you watch them compete you notice that they all don't do it exactly the same way. For instance when Phelps swims, he takes a breath every two strokes, some of the other guys take breaths every 3-4 strokes. They all have their own form of how they swim. They are all doing the same thing, swimming, but they all do it a little differently.
Well, as we continue our series on prayer today we get to the practice of prayer and answer the question, what ''form'' should my prayer life take? How do I pray? What are some of the elements? The truth is that there is a danger in teaching a specific ''form'' of prayer. As Andrew mentioned a couple of weeks ago, prayer is not about information it's about communication. We are not informing God of anything he doesn't already know, but we are communicating with God. We are spending time with him, talking to him, listening to him, enjoying his presence. Everybody communicates differently. If you are married then you know this to be fact. Men communicate differently than women, my wife reminds me of this every day.
So if we all have different communication styles with one another why would it be different with God? We are all going to communicate differently with God. Listen to this quote from Phil Anderson, a former Young Life Regional Director...
God calls us to pray, to communicate with him, to be in his presence. We will all do it differently because we are all wired differently and we are all in different life situations. A farmer will pray differently than his friend whose work is to sit at a computer all day. A teenager learning how to drive will pray differently than their parent sitting in the passenger seat and a mother of three litt ...
Brian Fletcher
I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Intro: The Olympics are awesome to watch. Greatest athletes in the world competing against each other. Watching Michael Phelps swim has been exhilarating and to see the USA win the men's relay was unbelievable. But as you watch them compete you notice that they all don't do it exactly the same way. For instance when Phelps swims, he takes a breath every two strokes, some of the other guys take breaths every 3-4 strokes. They all have their own form of how they swim. They are all doing the same thing, swimming, but they all do it a little differently.
Well, as we continue our series on prayer today we get to the practice of prayer and answer the question, what ''form'' should my prayer life take? How do I pray? What are some of the elements? The truth is that there is a danger in teaching a specific ''form'' of prayer. As Andrew mentioned a couple of weeks ago, prayer is not about information it's about communication. We are not informing God of anything he doesn't already know, but we are communicating with God. We are spending time with him, talking to him, listening to him, enjoying his presence. Everybody communicates differently. If you are married then you know this to be fact. Men communicate differently than women, my wife reminds me of this every day.
So if we all have different communication styles with one another why would it be different with God? We are all going to communicate differently with God. Listen to this quote from Phil Anderson, a former Young Life Regional Director...
God calls us to pray, to communicate with him, to be in his presence. We will all do it differently because we are all wired differently and we are all in different life situations. A farmer will pray differently than his friend whose work is to sit at a computer all day. A teenager learning how to drive will pray differently than their parent sitting in the passenger seat and a mother of three litt ...
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