tonight we are opening up a three-fold series on prayer in anticipation for the may 5^th national day of prayer. so tonight, sunday morning and next wednesday we will be focusing on different aspects of prayer—how to pray, why to pray, when to pray, what to pray, and we are going to challenge ourselves to pray.

my goal is not that we would leave this place tonight just thinking, “i don’t pray enough, i need to pray more.”

my goal is that we would leave this place tonight thinking, “i don’t pray enough, i need to pray more, and i need to pray better.”

tonight we focus on two aspects that i feel are essential to prayer, and without them our prayers are weak, frail. without truth and trust our prayers are blown and tossed around like a wave in the sea, they are feeble, they are useless—and this may sound harsh, but praying without truth and trust is wasting God’s time (and that’s a strong thing to say, since God is outside, not bound by space and time).

psalm 131

o Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; i do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.

but i have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

o israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

we have a lot of trust in the world around us—driving, walking, standing, eating

it’s shocking if we stop to think about it: we are constantly put in situations in which we are forced to trust in the world and the people around us.

but we have trouble in trusting God. we have trouble believing that God has our best interest in mind, and we struggle to and doubt that that He can answer any prayer despite any circumstance. or we may be sitting here thinking, well i believe that God can do anything, He is the greatest conceivable being—the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end—i trust him, i know he can do all things. if that is you tonight you are either extremely mature in your faith, as james would say—not lacking in anything—or you are lying to yourself.

val—trouble reading—talking funny—her words weren’t making sense—she ended up passing out—somehow she made it to the hospital—she had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball and it was putting pressure on her brain—it was a sunday when this happened and we were at the movement, it was during worship practice when we got the phone call—we stopped what we were doing and prayed—we prayed for about 15 minutes—but after we had prayed, one of my friends was livid. he was upset and said—do you even trust God? we prayed and now you sit here and you still worry. do you trust God? i understood what he was getting at—what good is it to pray if i don’t believe that God will work in this situation?

james 1:6 says that if we don’t believe that God can answer our prayers, if we don’t have faith and instead we doubt in our prayers, that we are double-minded, unstable in everything—like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

so believe big, dream big, hope big, because our God is big, and our God hears us, cares for us, and knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. let’s put our trust in more than steel, in more than sidewalks, in more than money—let’s put our trust in God when we pray.

let’s dig into psalm 131. psalm 131 is tantamount to trust, faith, and belief in God. in psalm 131 we have the sense of awe and wonder, and the maturity theme of persistent and quiet trust in God.

psalms 120-134 are a collection of psalms called the song of ascents—psalms that are brief, often reflecting images from the family and agricultural life of the common people—they are called the song of ascents because they refer to the ascent (journey up hill) of pilgrims on their way to jerusalem. these psalms may have been sung on such pilgrimages—they were prayerfully sung by traveling people, busy people, common people like you and me. i want to show you how the words of the psalmist communicate both trust and truth.

verse one starts: o Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high—in hebrew the word for heart is לֵב—meaning inner person, mind, will, understanding, soul one’s complete self—not just the organ—not just the heart that broke because you found out that abc cancelled all my children and one life to live, but the heart in hebrew is everything, including appetites, emotions and passions—and here one’s complete self is not proud, but humble. the eyes are not raised too high—they are instead expressing humility before God.

the psalmist continues: i do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me—i remember in college struggling with new understandings. my faith was being stretched, and i was subjected to tough questions that i thought would make or break my faith.  in my theology class we were dealing with difficult concepts of proving God’s existence, whether creationism, intelligent design, or theistic evolution were valid. we discussed free will, coercive and persuasive power of God, we discussed the question of how can evil exist in a world created by a completely good God? we discussed how laws of nature and miracles fit with one another and tried to grapple with eternity, all in light of modern scientific thought.

confused, perplexed and feeling like my faith was going out the window, i rushed to my old testament professor, i thought he could sort out all my troubles—with his big blue soft norwegian eyes, dr. everson said, “jeremy, my faith is built on who not how.”

 i do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me—the psalmist is not saying don’t think about these things, but remember that God was, is and will always be God.

2 but i have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me—i have put to rest this struggle of my soul—i have calmed and quieted my soul—and here i am in a position of reliance, of trust and security in being dependent on God.

3 o israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore—here the hebrew word for hope is יָחַל meaning to wait, to hope, to expect. this is the same hebrew verb used in the flood narrative—when after the ark had come to rest on mount ararat, in what we would call modern day armenia, noah releases birds to see if the waters had receded. he first sent forth a raven, then a dove, then another dove who brought back an olive leaf, and then in chapter 8:12 it says “then he waited [he hoped, ya-khal] another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she did not return to him anymore.”

he realized God was working things out. we need to trust in God when we pray. this prayer is about humble, quiet trust in God. we don’t have all the answers and we don’t know how happenings and circumstances in life will play out, but we put our hope and trust in God, most especially when we pray.  and we know as it says in romans 5 that hope does not put us to shame. it does not disappoint.

we need to trust in prayer, to believe that it is powerful, and that God hears and answers according to His will and perfect plan, but we also need to be truthful and honest in prayer.  the psalms teach us that profound change happens always in the presence of God.  but the profound change can only happen if we are honest in the presence of God, if we really are true to how we feel inside.

it’s okay to be angry with God. it’s okay to be upset. half of the psalms are laments [passionate expressions of grief and sorrow]. when you lament, you are asking God to create the conditions in which it will become possible for you to offer praise. and 1/3 of the laments are complaints.

it’s okay, just be honest about what’s really going on inside.

the disciples did it—they hurled complaints at Jesus—mark 4:35-38

mary and martha did it in the gospel of john—at the tomb of lazarus—john 11:32 Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.

prayer is about being honest. prayer is about trust. people who pray are a people living in hope.

thomas merton prayer of trust:

my LORD GOD, i have no idea where i am going. i do not see the road ahead of me. i cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do i really know myself, and the fact that i think that i am following Your will does not mean that i am actually doing so. but i believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. and i hope i have that desire in all that i am doing. i hope that i will never do anything apart from that desire. and i know that if i do this You will lead me by the right road though i may know nothing about it. therefore will i trust You always though i may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. i will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone.

-j.a.kays