Prayer

Lately, I've been thinking about prayer. As I've examined my own heart and life I've noticed a considerable lack of personal prayer as a spiritual discipline. But the more I think about it, prayer has always been difficult for me. I'm not sure why, it just feels so foreign. Maybe it's because I have always wrestled with the question of how to pray. My prayers seem so inadequate, like I never say the right thing or have a pure intention. I hear the prayer of others and feel overwhelmed by their depth of spiritual language in comparison with my own. I feel the pressure to measure up to their prayer, which seems so easy for them.

Recently I have been reading through Simply Christian by N.T. Wright. A book I would recommend to anyone and one I will comment on more in the near future. But, the one subject I want to highlight here is the chapter on prayer. Particularly, Wright's emphasis on not needing to be so original in prayer. Rather, Wright argues that when we pray we should gladly use prayers composed by others.

But, we don't like that idea. We want to be our own individual who is capable of praying our own great prayers.  Wright notes, "Part of our difficulty here is that we moderns are so anxious to do things our own way, so concerned that if we get help from anyone else our prayer won't be 'authentic' and come from our own heart, that we are instantly suspicious about using any else's prayer (164)."

But, isn't this the opposite of what Jesus taught? In Matthew 6:9-13 Jesus said,

Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name.

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, 

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

I think Jesus would be alright if more of our prayers followed his own, and maybe some of our questions and difficulties with prayer would be answered if we would humbly pray prayers composed by others. 

Forget

I wrote this 5 years ago but I would say that it's still true of me today. Even though I was overly obsessed with using ... to separate my thoughts. I guess I was trying to be like Rob Bell? Ouch! 

"i did...and i do...all the time. i forget about my Savior all the time. i forget about the importance of living the Kingdom now...like loving my neighbor or even my wife. i forget the important things and remember the pointless things...all the time. 

my excuse is the church. yes, they taught me to be like this. but...what a lame excuse. 

Christ came to this earth to redeem all of it. Christ came to redeem my forgetfulness. 

there is this process going on in all who call God "Father." that process is salvation. as children of God we are consistantly and continually on this journey of becoming. becoming redeemed through the blood of Christ. become the people God created us to be in Christ. and this is what i forget all the time. i forget who i am and what i have in Christ...now...in the present...continually. let us live now and in present. as we are being molded as we journey through the process of becoming."

Welcome

So, I don’t claim to be much of a writer. However, I’d really like to learn. This blog is an attempt to practice my writing skills as I learn to put my thoughts on paper, or computer screen.

So, that’s what you can expect from this blog. If it is read great, if not, that’s fine too. But regardless, I’ll have fun and learn from this experience.

For the Gospel of Christ,
Ryan Heinsch