Crash Course: Prayer

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Crash Course.

I I have a I have a new guest host with me.

Um that sounds weird.

Guest host.

Like I don't guest host.

I get I I'm a guest host.

You can be a guest host.

I didn't I don't know why I say guest.

I don't know.

Because you'll probably be in a lot of these, but whatever.

It's my first one, so I'll be the I'll be a guest on this one, Halloween.

Yeah, we're kind of just seeing how you do.

Okay, and and we'll see.

I'm on a trial period.

This is uh this is Megan.

Uh Megan is someone I I know you I know you pretty well.

Like Well, we're married.

Yeah, that helps.

So I so I know you really well.

And uh have we've been married for for this will be year 13.

I know it.

I'm right, right?

Yeah.

Oh wait, yes.

Oh, that's so awesome.

Hey, hey, I'm pregnant.

Math in my head takes a while.

Give me some grace.

Uh, you got it as much as you need.

Um, so the reason that that I want Megan to be someone that's on these uh these episodes from time to time is not just because of proximity and the fact that we can record these from home, which is which is nice, um, but but more because you're someone who knows the Bible really well, you've been following Jesus for a really long time, you're really passionate about your faith, um, and and you've grown.

I've I mean I've been with you since you were 17 years old.

I've watched you grow in your faith, you've watched me grow in in mine.

So I I know your experience, and I know um that you just have a really awesome connection with God, and you're actually really good at explaining it.

So you are more than qualified.

Um and you ramble less than me, which isn't saying much, but you ramble way less.

Well, you know.

Like I'm doing now.

Um if this is your first time listening to an episode of Crash Course, here's the basic idea behind this.

Um, these are our little mini podcasts that we do uh kind of under the umbrella of our our church's podcast, uh His Hands Church in Woodstock, Georgia.

Um there they exist for the main purpose of helping you get kind of up to speed in what it means to follow Jesus.

And and specifically, we try to dive into a different uh either word that's kind of a Bible word or a concept that is unique to uh to our faith.

Because a lot of the times when we start following Jesus, we we feel like we don't we don't understand what it's all about, you know, and we try really hard as a church not to use super churchy language, we try to use really everyday speak, but there's still concepts, there's still words, you know, that you can't avoid, things like I don't know, holiness, things like salvation.

And a lot of times even Christians who maybe have been following Jesus for a while have sort of hazy understanding of some of that, and that's okay.

We don't all need to be experts on everything, but if you're if you're hazy for long, you get confused.

Sure.

And we don't want that.

We want people to have a really clear understanding of of what it means to follow Jesus and what he's really done for us.

Well, you might shy away from things because you feel like it's too complicated, you know, and keep it'll keep you from something you shouldn't be able to enjoy.

Absolutely.

You're intimidated to join in conversations because you don't want to look so so this is a crash course, it is not exhaustive.

We don't have time to to dive into every single detail of you know thousands of years of of discussion on these topics, but we're just gonna do our best to cover the gist.

And our topic today, right now, this second, is drummall, please.

You don't have to do drum roll, I'm just joking.

Okay.

You weren't gonna do it anyway.

You know, you can do drum roll with your hands and I don't know how to do it.

Prayer.

Prayer.

Prayer.

Um, I know prayer is something that is is really uh powerful in your life.

It's something that you uh engage in a lot, and and I love I love I actually really love listening to you pray when we pray together.

And so I thought you'd be like, this would be the perfect topic for you to to start off with.

And so if if someone comes up to you, Megan, and says, Okay, I I believe in God, I just feel awkward praying.

That's something we hear a decent bit.

Yeah.

You know, I I I I don't I don't I don't know how to pray.

I don't feel like I'm good at prayer.

I hear people kind of qualify themselves, I'm not good at prayer.

Yeah, what would you tell them?

What would your response to to that uncertainty, that like nervousness about prayer be?

Well, I I guess what I would say is that prayer is is just talking to God and listening to God.

And we talk and we listen all day long to everyone in our lives, and talking and listening to God really isn't any different.

Um, we uh we picture it differently because we think about the God of the universe and how do you approach and talk to and listen to the God of the universe?

But uh God became man in Jesus, he made himself nearer to us, he has gone to great lengths to have a relationship with us, and so we're not approaching this far off, distant um like up in the sky, arms crossed on his throne, ready to judge us God.

We're we're approaching someone who wants to be our friend.

We're approaching someone who calls us um his children.

So it's just like talking to anybody else.

It's just communication, it's just a relationship.

So when people feel like they're not good at it, it's usually because they have a picture in their mind of God that that would be hard to approach.

But but God went to, like I said, great lengths to dispel that picture.

And the great lengths being Jesus on the cross.

I mean, coming here as a as a human being, dying a death on the cross, um, to reconcile us to him and to to bring us into a relationship with him.

He loves us so much.

He doesn't, he's not far away from us.

And I think any distance we feel is usually in our own heads.

So it's it's just like talking to anybody else.

Yeah, no, I think you're you're right on because um when when someone says something like, Oh, I don't know if I can pray, you know, I believe in God, but I'm just not good at prayer, there's this idea that you can mess it up.

Right, like there should be like a formality to it or a certain formula of these prayers work, these other prayers don't, or these prayers are acceptable to God, other prayers are completely unacceptable to God.

Right.

And and that's just not true.

No, it's it's not.

And if I mean if you see it as a ritual, it is something you can mess up, it is something that you can get wrong.

And so, man, if if like you said, if God is that, if he's that, you know, kind of angry or volatile, really easy to anger God that is just waiting for you to make a mistake and he's gonna jump on you, then prayer might be something you'd rather avoid because I'd rather not do it than mess it up and make him mad.

Um, or you would have got some like holy distant thing that I now have to like grovel to.

Right.

And that's that's not the truth either.

Yeah, absolutely.

He's holy, but he's not distant.

Right.

And and he's relatable, you know, like he loves us.

He knows everything.

This is the thing.

If someone was asking me about this, and this is the truth, he knows everything about us.

God is our loving father who knows everything that's on our minds, everything that's on our hearts, and we come to him and share that with him.

It is a joy to God.

When we pray to God, it is a joy to him.

So we don't have to approach it in this like gingerly formulaic, try to make it fancy wording way.

That's not how I approach someone I love.

Well, I'm glad you said that, though, like fancifully wordy.

So so I I think worded.

So I I think that maybe a great way to help people engage with prayer, because that's what really what we would want.

If you're if you're a new follower of Jesus, um, or someone that's been following him for a while, but you're just it's this is still this is a holdup for you.

Uh we would say, man, engage, start praying.

Yeah.

And I think one of the reasons that we struggle with that is because there are misconceptions about prayer.

What's really cool is that Jesus himself talked about a lot of those misconceptions.

Prayer is something he actually talked about really practically.

Um, if you want to read, like, yeah, I think Matthew chapters five, six, and seven, like there's a section there where Jesus is just giving really like practical instruction.

Yeah.

And prayer is one of the things he talks about.

And one of the things he mentions is what you said.

Hey, when you pray, don't worry about these like fancy, long, uh, flowery prayers.

At the time, the religious leaders in his day, that's how they prayed.

Right.

They do it out loud in public.

And it was like they're trying to impress God with their their eloquence.

You know what I mean?

And so I think sometimes when we pray, we feel like, oh man, I don't, I don't have the I mean, I don't I don't have the ability to pray like I've heard someone else pray, where it just is so whatever.

And Jesus said, just tell God what you need.

Right.

Pray simple.

Exactly.

And and pray like yourself.

Um, I think sometimes you'll hear someone pray and you think, man, that was really powerful, and I want to pray like that, or um I don't know.

We do we just pray like yourself.

Um Jesus loves you as as you are, and when you come to him and pray, you can pray with words that you would use.

You don't have to pray with words that you would never say.

Um if if you don't normally say the word Lord, you don't have to say the word Lord.

Like there's no there's no formula to it.

You can just come to him and pray.

When I pray personally, um I I pray whatever's on my heart and whatever's on my mind.

If I'm confused, if I'm angry, if I'm sad, if I'm happy, if I'm excited, um, if I want to praise Jesus, if I want to ask him for something I really need.

If I just want to sit quietly and know that Jesus is there and listen, then I do that.

It's it really is very simple.

It is not need to be it does not need to be fancy.

Right.

Like you can drop the fancy.

Yeah, I mean Jesus said it doesn't need to be it doesn't need to be fancy.

It also doesn't need to be like long.

Right.

Okay.

One of the classic examples is Jesus was asked very specifically, hey, how should we pray?

So even 2,000 years ago, the people that Jesus came to who were very like religious people, yeah.

Um, they were like, we we still don't feel comfortable in this.

And Jesus gives them an example.

It's you know, classically known as the Lord's Prayer.

Yeah.

And he he prays, he says, Uh, you know, our Father in heaven, may your name be praised, and or hallowed be thy name, depending on what translation, if you're going old school.

Um that sounds very fancy, right?

But it wasn't.

No, it wasn't.

And in their time, he used he used, by the way, and this is a good thing to say, sometimes some some older translations of the Bible uh almost fancy up the words that Jesus used, or at least from our perspective.

Right.

Um, because because they were using their English from you know that period of time and they wrote more.

But but the reality is Jesus spoke the everyday language.

Um he's he spoke common language.

If you study the original, uh, the original manuscripts that are written in Greek, uh, he spoke common Greek.

So he wasn't sitting here, you know, just constantly speaking with these long poetic statements.

His the Lord's prayer is very simple.

Right.

I also love that it's not long.

His example, because sometimes I think when we we're starting out trying to engage in prayer, we feel like, well, I gotta pray for hours, right?

Right.

Like you're supposed to, yeah.

Yeah, I better go in a room and have have hours to pray.

By the way.

And that's awesome.

Like, do that if you can.

Right.

Like out, but but Jesus, the Jesus' example of prayer, I think we timed it one time because we read it and we didn't read it crazy fast.

It was like 15 to 20 seconds.

It's very, very, you know, simple.

So But Jesus did go away by himself to pray.

Right.

But I think I think the point is that it can be very different.

It can be you can have a variety of different ways and times that you pray.

Yeah, if you if you don't have an hour to pray, well, Jesus gave an example of a prayer that took about 20 seconds.

So and he said, Hey, pray like this.

So Jesus himself said it doesn't have to be long.

He said, Don't don't try to make it this big fancy thing, this big public thing.

He said, Hey, pray privately, you know.

It's okay to pray out loud with other people, but he was talking about people who are praying to impress other people.

Right.

Don't get into all that.

Um, you mentioned praying yourself.

I mean, I think I think back to David in the in the Old Testament.

Um, David wrote the book of Psalms, most of those anyway.

And those are songs.

Almost think of them like journal entries, you know.

He was this moody dude.

And a lot of them are prayers.

It's him talking to God.

Right.

And sometimes he's really angry.

Right.

And when he's really angry, he's not holding that back.

No.

Sometimes he's really sad, and when he's really sad, he's not trying to hold it all together.

Yeah, and sometimes he's really, really joyful, and he prays joyful.

We don't, I think um, again, with that idea that God is this formal thing for us to approach, we edit ourselves and edit our our emotions and feel like, well, God can't handle that.

Like he's gonna be offended by my emotions.

And that's absolutely not true.

When I bring my anger to God, which often I mean, this happened with David all the time.

When I bring my anger to God, he shapes it into peace.

Or what if I bring fear to God, he shapes it into peace?

Or if I if I take to God my sadness, he will shape it into joy.

David starts so many of his psalms saying things like, You have forsaken me, smite my enemies, they are after me day and night.

Slap my enemies in the face.

That's like one of my favorite that's in the Bible.

That's awesome.

And then at the end of the psalm is like, and God, you are amazing and you're mighty, and you're gonna do it all, and we're gonna praise you, and you're amazing.

And so, somewhere in those 20-something verses that he wrote, God took his emotions and shaped it.

So we don't have to edit ourselves with God.

Right.

He didn't pop a prozac like halfway through.

He he actually brought he brought his anger to God.

Yeah.

And God then got turned it around.

Yes.

And so we do ourselves a disservice when we try to clean ourselves up for God.

That's not what he's asking us to do.

He said, Come to me and let me clean you up, let me um form in you the things that need to be formed in you.

Bring me your heart and let me shape it.

And so when we pray, that's what we're doing.

We're taking God our hearts and allowing him to shape that in prayer, in conversation with our Creator.

Right.

And so we don't have to edit ourselves, we don't have to clean ourselves up.

Um we can just burst right through the throne room of heaven, run to God and say, This is what I'm dealing with, this is what I'm thinking about, this is what I'm going through.

And then we get to let Him minister to us, and it really is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Yeah, and so so just kind of recap and then we'll we'll move on to a couple other little things.

I think we can do this real quick.

Okay.

Um so you don't have to pray fancy.

No, you don't you don't have to pray long.

It's great when you have long prayers, but Jesus prayed really short prayers.

You can pray honest, you can pray, you can pray angry if you're angry, you can pray sad if you're sad.

If you're just frustrated, then you know what?

Take that frustration of God.

Um I I I would I would also add, you know, that the Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, um, meaning that you just you can pray at any like all the time.

Yeah, it's you can have a constant prayer on your heart that you just kind of whisper throughout the day.

Yeah.

And I would also add, I know this is gonna be quick, but to pray bold, um, to not hedge with God.

I think a lot of times we go to God and say, God, okay, so this is what's going on, and I would really love for you to provide, but if you don't, and if you don't, and if it's okay, and if it if it be thy will, please, like, don't hedge with God.

Right.

Bring to him what you need and then trust him to meet that need however he's gonna meet it.

But you can pray bold.

You can ask for what is really, really on your heart.

You don't have to like give him an out when you pray.

Yeah, exactly.

And and think sometimes we do that as like a self-protection thing.

Well, yeah, because like, oh man, if what if I ask for this and I don't get it?

And honestly, in those situations, trust God.

Absolutely.

What if I ask for this and God does something completely different?

Well then praise Jesus.

He heard my prayer, right?

He's gonna meet my needs.

Yeah, no is an answer, it's not one we like to hear, but but it counts.

He's gonna meet he's gonna meet our needs.

He says he will.

One final thing that you already mentioned.

I just want to like maybe finish up with this.

Prayer works.

Yeah.

It really does.

It really, really does.

And there's a few there's a few scriptures that really come to mind.

Number one, uh, there's there's a verse in James that says the prayer of a of a righteous person, just which really just means you could really take that to mean like a Christian, because Jesus makes us righteous.

He makes us righteous with us.

When it's all right with God.

So the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Um, God hears prayers.

Yes.

There's so many stories in the Bible where someone prays and God hears prayers.

You can pray over and over again and know that God is listening.

Yeah.

Um and there's a specific set of verses in in the book of Philippians, it's chapter four, where the Bible says, Don't worry about anything.

Instead, pray about everything.

And the and then it goes on to say that that like the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, yeah, a peace that doesn't even make sense will wash over us, will cover us.

So the idea is, hey, if you're anxious about something, don't worry about it, which is really hard to do.

Yeah.

But pray about it.

And then it says, and when you pray, so and it's talking about anxiety and worry.

When you pray, when you bring your worries and your anxieties to God, he's going to take that and he's going to give you peace.

That is something that anyone who prays a lot has has experienced.

Sure.

The the peace of God.

So prayer is effective.

It works.

Not only does God answer our prayers and actually do some of the things like there have been times we've both prayed for specific things and they've happened.

Oh, yeah.

And it's and it and it they've happened in such a way that it's like Only God could do that.

And only God knew what we prayed.

Only God, only God could do that.

Yeah.

So prayer works in that sense, but it also works in the sense that that even if we're not seeing the the thing we want to see happen happen the way we want it to, it it affects us.

It does.

It it it shapes our hearts and it and it gives us peace.

Sometimes I'll pray for something that I think I really, really want.

Um, but then I'll realize but then through prayer, God will show me what I really need is to let that thing go.

Ooh, that's good.

But but he gives me the ability to do that, and it's gentle.

Like God, when God works within us, he works gently within us, his spirit gently within us.

And so when I take something to God and he says, No, Megan, you need to let that go.

No, Megan, you need to let that go.

Over time, praying and asking, we work those things out together.

And that prayer, even when God and I might be, if you want to picture it like on opposite sides of this thing I'm asking for, um, when we work that out together, our relationship grows.

So it's prayer can't be bad.

You can't, you can't, there's no bad result that you're gonna get from prayer.

You're gonna give something to God.

He's gonna talk to you, he's gonna speak to you, he's gonna work things out on your behalf.

It it it really, really, really is powerful.

There's no reason not to pray about something.

You can't you can't mess it up.

Can't mess it up.

Uh you are good at it because you're talking to your father who loves you.

So, you know, pray, pray simple if you need to.

Right.

Pray, pray honest, pray real.

Uh, don't worry about seeing it as a ritual.

But I would just, we would just say pray often.

Yeah, pray bold.

There's nothing's off limits in prayer.

Right.

Bring it all to God and trust him.

And and man, uh, watch what he does.

Yeah.

So pray.

It works.

It's good.

All right.

That's gonna wrap it up for this episode.

We will talk to you guys later.

Megan, thank you so much for being here.

As the guest.

As the guest host.

Which sounds so I don't know why.

I gotta figure out how to start and end things.

Let's end it now.

Okay.

It's over.