Prayer --
It's not just for breakfast anymore.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.
A Christian is only as victorious, peaceful, and free, as he is at any 
given moment in his heart.
	There will be up times, there will be down times, 
but what about just day in and day out times.
	when I examine myself, I find that I spend a lot of my time 
worrying about things.  
	I know things are coming up that I have no control over.  
Maybe they won't turn out the way I want.  And so every time I 
think of them, I worry, I envision certain disastrous scenarios, and 
then I just wait around for them to come and hit me on the head.  I 
wait around to see whether they will be so bad or not.  This is a 
fatalistic attitude, but what can I do?  
Then when the trial passes, I breathe a sigh of relief, and begin 
worrying about the next trial.  This is not the victorious Christian life.
	For example -- Detention today.  There were all sorts of 
different kids, there was potential for rebellion and disaster, things 
could have gone any number of ways.

I am seeing that God wants us not to practice the presence of anxiety, 
but to pray.  When we pray, we should pray on a momentary basis, 
not just our prayer list in the morning.  I'm not just talking about 
intercession for the nations, I'm talking about specific personal 
petition.  When the worry arises, this should be a sign for the prayer 
to arise.

"Don't fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and 
praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your 
concerns.  Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything 
coming together for good, will come and settle you down.  It's 
wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center 
of your life."
-Phil. 4:6-7 (the message)

Things will always happen to cause us to worry.  Problems will arise.
	I used to think victory was getting out of the problem 
situations successfully.
	Now I measure victory in percentage of worry spent on the 
problem, regardless of how the situation works out.
	If I get out of the situation and worry about it a little less this 
time than last time, that's a victory.
	Or even if I'm worrying and catch myself worrying and 
remember to pray, even if the prayer doesn't bring me peace and I 
go right back to worrying, that's a victory.

How to Pray

2 Dangers.  
	One is to not pray specifically enough, 
	and the other is to pray so specifically that there's no room in 
your prayer for God to do what he wants.  
	Both are dangerous.  I struggle most with the first one, so I'll 
address it first.


Everybody prays their own way, but I think we need to pray for 
specific things to happen that we want to have happen.  That way it's 
not so fatalistic.  We're not just waiting around like victims 
wondering what will hit us.  This is calling forth the true masculine.  
	Jesus said, "If you ask anything in my name, then you will get 
it."  
I'm not going to argue the theology of this, but that's what it says.  I 
just know, I don't get a whole lot of peace by praying, "thy will be 
done."  If I'm having a hard time believing that God wants to bless 
me, then "thy will be done" really just sets me up for one more 
spanking.  I think it's his will for me to pray specifically.  He tells me 
to seek, ask, and knock.  
He doesn't say, "If you seek..."  He wants me to seek.  So I'm not 
being disobedient by praying specifically.
	Pray big.  Pray for miracles.  You can't outhope God.  It may 
come at a time and in a form you didn't expect, but no one then can 
blame you for not trying.  It's like the serenity prayer.  Once I've 
prayed big and specifically, then that is the strength to change the 
things I can change.  
Then I can have the serenity to accept the things I can't.  Otherwise, 
I'll just be resentful.
	I can just see God up in heaven saying, "what is it that you 
want, exactly?  Speak up, I can't hear you."  
	The free will of man and the sovereignty of God is a great holy 
mystery, and prayer is touched by this mystery.  I still know that 
I'm theologically correct in saying that prayer matters.  If we pray, 
certain things will happen that wouldn't happen otherwise.  God may 
cause us to pray and start the whole thing off, but I know I'm safe in 
saying that prayer is important.


The only way I can have peace about asking specifically, though, is if 
I end it with, "nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done."  This is 
what Jesus prayed in the garden.  Then I'm asking permission, 
recognizing that it's up to him.  
	If I don't yield to his goodness and sovereignty after being 
specific, then I am clinging on to my specific request, thinking "this 
must happen, or else."  How can you have peace  without letting God 
be in charge?
	Sometimes I don't even pray because I don't want to do his 
will.  
It's like asking  your parents to stay out past dark.  If you ask, and 
they say yes, then you're set.  If you ask and they say no, then 
you're sunk if you come in late.  If you don't ask, then maybe when 
you come in late you can say, "I didn't know."  But if you don't ask, 
that's not obedience, even if you get what you want.  And you never 
can enjoy staying out, because you're always wondering what kind of 
trouble you'll be in when you get back.  So there's no peace, even if 
the situation works out to your liking.
	May we all say, "I'd rather have peace and face the unexpected 
and painful, than be anxious and have things work out exactly my 
way."

Can we trust God to be good to us?  Does God answer prayer?  Here's 
what the scripture says:

 "Don't fret or worry.  Instead of worrying, pray.  Let petitions and 
praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your 
concerns.  
Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming 
together for good, will come and settle you down.  It's wonderful 
what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

It's not the method of prayer that brings peace, it's Christ himself.  
It's not faith in a method.  It's just inviting Jesus into your anxiety, 
asking him to do specifically what you would like to see have done, 
and then thankfully and gladly yielding to whatever he wants to do.

As Christians, we are only as victorious and peaceful as we are at any 
given moment in our hearts.  If you are anxious in your heart as 
often as I am, then I really think we need to pray in this way more.  
Not just for quiet time in the morning, not just some vague breath 
prayer (although sometimes that's all we can do), but whenever 
anxiety arises and we sit around dreading some situation, that's 
when we need to pray specifically and yieldedly.