My Green Eyeshade

Well! So what does my record of petitions look like? Would it pass muster with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants? Probably not. Unlike Mr. Muller, I am not that concerned with demonstrating to the world that prayer is real. Mr. Muller has already performed that ministry. My concern is with convincing some modern Christians that prayer is concrete and real, and as such, I want to leave them with a flexible, easy format they can use that takes account of most Christian’s busy lives. Here is how my prayer book-keeping is formatted:

1.) I use an ordinary three ring binder note book and loose-leaf, college-ruled 8 1/2 x 11 paper.

I used to use spiral-bound 8 1/2 x 11 college-ruled notebooks until I found out that more that half my prayers tended to get either answered, obsoleted, or morphed so much, that I was left with re-copying a lot of my unanswered prayers when my prayer book got filled up.

I NEVER use those fancy-schmancy writing journals you see in book stores. To anyone you may happen to live with closely, those kinds of writing journals practically scream “READ ME! I MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING ABOUT YOU INSIDE ME!” I really believe only crypto-exhibitionists use those things for diaries or prayer books.

2.) I have the following tabs in my loose-leaf prayer note book.

a.) “The Daily.” This section contains those prayers I need to say daily to be very persistent in them or to keep on getting answers to them.

b..) “Round 1” to “Round 7.” Since I have roughly about a hundred or so prayers in my prayer notebook at any given time, I divide my less urgent prayers amongst seven other tabs, I call “Rounds.” There are times when I pray through all seven rounds in a day (and possibly a second or third time as well.). There also times when I pray the daily and then only one round or two. I keep a book marker in the notebook so I will constantly rotate through all the rounds evenly.

c.) “Answered.” This is where I put the prayers that have either been answered (by a “yes,” or a “no,” or a “not right now”), or obsoleted (old Chronos took care of it.), or morphed into another prayer ( more on “morphing” a bit later.)

3.) For each page in the prayer book, I have one prayer. The format of the page is that I have the prayer on the top of the page, and then at the bottom of the page I put the date I’ve prayed the prayer in mm/dd/yy format. As I pray the prayer day by day, the dates work their way up from the bottom of the page, towards the ending of the prayer at the top.

But the really interesting thing is how the prayer works it’s way down the page over time as the dates of the praying move themselves up the page. This is what I have referred to above as morphing.

What is morphing? Morphing is what happens when I put a prayer out on the front door of my mind one day, and then find when I come to it again on another day that it needs to be changed in some way. Only it’s not that I’m changing the prayer, it’s that the prayer has changed me. I’ve left something out on the front door for God, and God comes by the backdoor and leaves me a better version of what I’ve prayed for. In between those two events, I have been changed in some way in either my mind, my heart, or my soul.

I’ll give you some examples of the phenomena from my prayer notebooks. (And please remember my embarrassment in showing you these prayers. I’m showing you this so you can see what morphing looks like and not because I want to blow my own horn):

Here, for example, is a prayer I began praying on 6/15/97 and prayed sixteen times until 4/21/98:

“Show me how to build with gold and silver and precious stones and not with wood, hay, and stubble. And give me the boldness and bravery to do so.”

[This is based on

1 Cor 3:9-15

9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building.

10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

(KJV) It shows how reading the word of God stimulates prayer.]

By 4/27/98 it had morphed into:

“Manufacture in me Thy desires, O God. Show me how to build with gold, silver, and precious gems. Give me godly plans, plans that increase Thy glory. And empower me through Thy Spirit within me to bring them into reality.”

I’ve apparently learned more about the deep work of the heart and the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit of God.

Then the prayer morphed into:

“Manufacture in me, through Thy Holy Spirit within me, Thy desires, O God. Show me how to build with gold, silver, and precious gems. Give me godly plans, plans that increase Thy glory. And empower me through Thy Spirit within me to bring them into reality.”

Then it morphed into:

“Manufacture in me, through Thy Holy Spirit within me, Thy desires, O God. Show me how to build with gold, silver, and precious gems. Give me godly plans, plans that increase Thy glory. And empower me through Thy Spirit within me to bring them into reality. Or just shove me into the experiences you want to teach me in.”

That last was due to my finally understanding that I was too hung up on having plans. Also, I had finally understood the funny, a-causal logic of faith that Philemon 1:6 so graphically demonstrates.

Phile 1:6

6 I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

(NIV)

Normal logic dictates that “a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ” should come before attempting to “be active in sharing your faith.” But no, with Christianity, it’s just the reverse. You learn more about Christianity by sharing it then you do by studying it. It’s a communicable dis-disease. My writing this book is an answer to this part of the prayer.

Recently I’ve had a major morph in many of my prayers at a single stroke. In a lot of my prayers, I used to use the phrase, “help me to ...” But there is a difference between humming the Beatles lyric, “I get by with a little help from my friends” -- and yelling “HELP! I’M DROWNING!” The Lord laid this difference on my heart. The Lord told me that if I really want Him to do something through me, I should stop praying “Help me to ...” and start praying “Cause me to ...”

The Lord wants to be the focal point of all causation, and is apparently very serious about taking the credit for everything. And since what He does is usually so much better than what I do, I am more than willing to give Him all the credit He both deserves and wants.

“So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” Luke 17:10

So now the prayer above reads:

“Manufacture in me, through Thy Holy Spirit within me, Thy desires, O God. Cause me to build with gold, silver, and precious gems. Give me godly plans, plans that increase Thy glory. And empower me through Thy Spirit within me to bring them into reality. Or just shove me into the experiences you want to teach me in.”

Now, do realize that I do not think this morphing means I’m a really spiritual person. I think it means quite the opposite. I believe it is ultimately caused by my stubborn and hard-headed hard-heartedness. As we’ve see before, George Muller apparently dealt with his will-to-power problems before he even came before the Lord in prayer:

http://www.unityinchrist.com/prayer/mueller3.htm

“I seek at the beginning to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to a given matter. Nine-tenths of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord's will, whatever it may be. When one is truly in this state, it is usually but a little way to the knowledge of what His will is.”

So that is the format and mechanism of my prayer-bookkeeping. It has some features in common with George Muller’s, but also differences. And by the way, Mr. Muller has some interesting statistics to give us from his prayer books.

http://www.unityinchrist.com/prayer/mueller3.htm

“Mr. Muller testifies that in his lifetime fifty thousand such specific prayers were answered. Years before he died, about the middle of his career, he affirmed that up to that time five thousand of his definite prayers had been answered on the day of asking.”

There’s some food for thought.