Part II Concrete Prayer

“More things are wrought by prayer then the world dreams of.”
Tennyson

"I believe in definite prayer. Abraham prayed for Sodom. Moses interceded for the children of Israel. How often our prayers go all around the world, without a real definite asking for anything! And often, when we do ask, we don't expect anything. Many people would be surprised if God did answer their prayers."
Dwight L. Moody,
How to Have a Good Prayer Meeting from Golden Counsels, 1899

The Disciples Prayer

Well, what can I now quote as an example of concrete prayer? Well, obviously, I’m going to adduce what is commonly called The Lord’s Prayer. But it is not really the Lord’s prayer. It should be called, “The Disciples Prayer” because the Lord taught it to his disciples after one of them asked him to teach them how to pray. (Luke 11:1) In reality, The Lord’s Prayer is His high priestly prayer of John 17. But lets look at The Disciple’s Prayer:

Matt 6:9-13
9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts [sins], as we forgive our debtors [those who sin against us].
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
(KJV)

And what do we see in this prayer? Well, we notice that:

1.) The Recipient is known, and correctly addressed, and there is an on-going relationship with Him.

2.) The direction of the prayer is immediately surrendered to its Recipient. Instead of the sender imposing his will on God, he requests that God impose His will on him. In heaven, God’s will is not thwarted or gotten around. And it is a Kingdom because there are beings - messengers (Greek: anggelos) - who execute that will without delay or opposition. The sender is asking that God’s authority in heaven be brought down to earth, and that he might be made an agent of that process, especially while he is praying. And one result of that is the comprehensive brevity and concreteness of the prayer. Very specific things are begged for.

3.) There is belief. That can be adduced from “Hallowed be thy name.” In the dictionary, “hallowed” means a.) to make or set apart as holy. b.) to respect or honor greatly, revere. Often, one can tell what religion a person has by listening to how they swear and curse. Or rather, one can tell what religion they have but don’t really believe in.

4.) Now, believe or not, this prayer is being recorded. In the time of the original disciples, the creation of paper was such a labor intensive process that ownership of it was prohibitively expensive for most of the mass of the people. So what the average person did to remember something spoken in language was to make up a rhyme about it, or structure it in some way that would help in committing the words to memory. This is essentially how Homer’s Iliad (the Troy story) was passed on from generation to generation. The prayer above uses the structure method. It is structured in such a way that once you say it a few times, it sticks in your memory and never leaves. The prayer is “on record,” and there is expectation of its being answered. With “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever,” the sender is putting God on notice that he actually does believe and expect that the Recipient has the means and the will to answer this prayer. God does everything for His own glory. God, of his own will, chooses to gain glory by redeeming us back to Himself. This is what we can put our trust in. Where His own glory is at stake, He will not deny Himself.

5.) “Give us this day our daily bread.” This is a daily prayer, so the persistence is there. (Yes, there have been abuses of this prayer in the past by making it a “vain repetition,” but that is an abuse. In its original form it was a daily prayer.) That the Recipient’s name is “hallowed,” and the coming of His kingdom to earth is desired, shows that the passion is there. The sender really cares about this prayer getting answered.

6.) The relationship with the Recipient, the specificity and submissiveness of the request, the evident belief and expectation, and the persistence of this prayer all argue for the fact that it will be followed up by thanksgiving when the answers to this prayer are noticed or received. This is apparently a prayer meant to be said at the beginning of the day, and then reflected on at the day’s end to see if any of it was answered to any degree. This is concrete prayer.

I am going to expand and reinforce these points, and while doing so, I will show you how I implement each of these points in my own method of concrete prayer. After that I will pull all the elements together and show you how it works as a whole.

A Note on Spiritual Immodesty

Earlier I mentioned the impertinence of my telling people how I think they should pray, and I also alluded to the inherent immodesty of this undertaking. As the second part of this book rolls on, I’m afraid to say that you are going to be treated to an avalanche of this.
But believe you me, I am very aware of the spiritual hazards of this.

Matt 6:1-6
1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
2 Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
(KJV)

I recall a Christian video that came out once, whose title I will not repeat. It was about a series of good deeds done by a Christian. And they were very good deeds indeed. But the horribly embarrassing thing about the whole video was that the Christian who had performed these good deeds was actually starring in the video in which he was demonstrating all the good deeds he had done. I got the sinking feeling that this Christian had never had Proverbs 27:2 read to him, which says:

Prov 27:2
2 Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.
(KJV)

I am deathly afraid of what I am about to do in this book. I want to tell Christians who have not discovered answered prayer that there is such a thing as answered prayer. And I want to tell these Christians about what I have discovered about answered prayer. But I can’t seem to tell them these things without revealing how I pray, and some of the things I’ve prayed for, and how the process of prayer has practically worked out for me.

I cannot seem to do this without putting myself on display to some extent. The situation seems sort of analogous to conducting sex education. One hopes to avoid bragging (and keep one’s privacy if there is nothing much to brag about), but one also needs to go into details if one’s audience is entirely ignorant and inexperienced in the subject.

I suppose I shall just have to throw caution to the wind, throw myself on the mercy of Almighty God, and hope I will not lose my reward - or make a complete idiot of myself.

So please take what I have to say in the spirit in which I am trying to say it to you. I cannot publish this anonymously, because in the end that is not really possible. And anyway, I am obliged to take full responsibility for all that is in this book.