Today we watched the DVD session “Praying and Confessing” from John Ortberg’s The Life You’ve Always Wanted and held a discussion based on questions from the Participant’s Guide.
The main points from the video are:
Prayer really does matter
In the Bible you don’t really find “nice”, religious prayers. People haggle with God. They are bold, reckless in their prayers. They seem to operate from the assumption that prayer really does change things.
No heroics – start where you are
Start small. One step at a time. If you’re too ambitious you might burn out and give up after awhile. Start out with 5 minutes a day devoted to prayer. Even if you feel you can do more sometimes, stick to 5 minutes to start. Consistency is more important than quantity.
Pray about what really matters
We need to slow our minds down to be able to pray effectively. Ortberg used the phrase “monkeys in the banana tree” to describe our wandering minds. When your mind wanders, rather than fighting it you might want to consider maybe that’s what’s really important to your heart so you need to talk to God about it. The concept of “simple prayer” is just talking with God about what really matters to me. Being real in prayer is important.
Stains on the sofa
We all have sinned. We have all “stained the sofa”. That is, done what we ought not to have done or not done what we ought to have done. The remedy? The practice of confession. Why do I have to confess? Ortberg suggests it’s not for God as much as it is for us. So that we can become the kind of people who don’t sin anymore. It’s really about “how do I become a different kind of person.” We should practice self-examination. You can use lists such as the 7 deadly sins, or the 10 commandments to assist in bringing to mind our sins for the purpose of confession. Be ruthlessly honest. Confess to specific acts not general sins. The goal is think and feel differently about the situation where you sinned so you don’t do it again. Confess to another person as well as to god.
The real value of confession
I can only be loved to the extent that I am known. Through confession to God I appropriate his love more fully. By confessing to another person I become fully known. Thereby I can be fully loved and start to heal.
Since we will not have a meeting next Saturday because of Iron Sharpens Iron, we have two weeks to put what we’ve learned in this session into practice.
- Practice confession to God by yourself.
- Establish a pattern of prayer. There’s section in the participant’s guide on page 63 to help with this. Give it a try. (The handouts this week were copies of the relevant pages in the participants guide.)
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2 comments:
Ortberg suggests doing only 5 minutes of prayer at the same time daily and restricting it to no more than 5 minutes. I have tried this and, in fact, am practicing it now. There are good and bad aspects to this. I find that the main idea, that you don't overdo it at first so you don't get burned out is a good one. But I also find that it can become ritualistic and just something to get out of the way quickly rather than a deeply meaningful communication with God. I think, however, that the idea is just to get started. If we wait for a comprehensive methodology for prayer, we will never begin! Prayer is primarily experiential. You have to "just do it" as the Nike ad says. We have to deal with the problems that arise as they come.
........garyH
- hands on prayer:
I was trying to apply some of Ortberg's suggestions on prayer this AM. I guess what's on my mind mostly is stuff from work. So I prayed about that. Specifically, I prayed about something that was bothering me but I was kind of afraid to bring up about how I felt i was doing a thing that was required by my group but that nobody else in the group was doing it so i was kind of resentful cause it took away from time from my primary responsibilities. I didn't really think that much about it after i prayed but first thing in the morning the issue came up without me really trying and it was resolved really easily without the possible angst I was dreading. It is kind of a light-weight answer to prayer ... not on the level of bringing sight to the blind or anything but I guess it's a start. I hesistate bringing up such a little thing 'cause I have doubt whether it is really an answer to prayer or it would have happened anyway and i'm just bringing it up to be "in" with the brothers. I hate that kind of thing. But I was thinking, that's how faith in anything grows, by practicing it. If it keeps working, you learn to trust it and that's cause it's sinking down into your heart. So the thing is to keep practicing "simple prayer", practical prayer and if it keeps working ... well, there you are!
..........garyH
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