Happy day, everyone! I continue my sermon series on prayer by looking at Jesus’ time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. It’s not an easy passage, but I believe it can be instructive for us. Jesus doesn’t not act like how I would want him to act in this situation, but therein lies the place of learning for me. I hope it’s meaningful for you, as well.

SCRIPTURE – Matthew 26:36-46

 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” 

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing. Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer!”

SERMON
What to Pray When You Don’t Know What to Pray
Matthew 26:36-46
March 22, 2009

I would imagine any religious tour of the Holy Land would include a visit to the Garden of Gethsemane. I’ve never been there but I’ve seen pictures, and it looks beautiful. It’s a peaceful little garden among a grove of ancient olive trees, looking back at the eastern wall of Jerusalem. I’m sure it’s meaningful place to visit.

But there are other Gethsemanes in the world and these places aren’t so picturesque. My guess is we’ve all been to at least one of them. They are the places where no one wants to be, places of agony and of fear, places where times are so traumatic you don’t even know what to pray. As we continue our sermon series on prayer this morning, we’re going to look at Jesus’ time of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This event in Matthew occurs right after the Last Supper in the Upper Room and right before Jesus’ arrest. It’s not an easy passage to deal with. William Barclay said it’s a passage we must approach on our knees. Jesus knows what’s coming, he knows God’s plan, and he wants to take time to pray to prepare himself for it. He brings along three of his most trusted disciples, hoping that they will provide strength and support for him as he prepares for his final hours. It’s good to have friends and family around us during times like these.

This passage is a bit unnerving and could shake our faith a bit. The picture of Jesus here is not one of a confident Messiah, turning over tables and casting our demons. This is not Jesus the heroic action figure. He doesn’t say, “I’ll be back!” He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” He wants his friends close by. This is Jesus at his most human.

And can you blame him? No one wants to die at 33, especially in such a brutal way as crucifixion. Jesus realizes that this is it. Gethsemane is that place in life where you realize you are out of options. No amount of bargaining can save you. You are on your knees. You are afraid to go forward and you can’t go back. Things are bad, but something worse might be on its way.

Gethsemane for me was a hospital bed in Columbus, Ind., where I waited to hear a doctor’s diagnosis. I knew I couldn’t go back, but I really didn’t want to go forward, either. Hospital rooms often turn into Gethsemanes. As do funeral homes and tension-filled family rooms. And the boss’ office. And a courtroom. There are other Gethsemanes in the world and life changes forever there. Something dies. Something is never the same.

So what do you pray during those times? What do you pray when you don’t know what you want to happen? Sure, it would be great if God would swoop down and miraculously cure us or rescue us from our own bad decisions. But if we know in our hearts that we have to move forward and we don’t know what lies ahead, what do we pray?

Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane is both surprising and instructive. First, it’s interesting to note that Jesus’ natural response to the crisis is prayer. He already had developed a relationship with God, so during his darkest hour, he turns to God almost as an involuntary action. On one of our mission trips, a youth fell and hurt her tailbone. While we waited for an ambulance, the host minister gathered us around the girl and said, “C’mon, let’s be about doing what we’re supposed to do.” And we prayed for her. In Gethsemane, we are often rendered so helpless, so immobile, that the only thing we can do is pray. Prayer is a necessity because otherwise life would feel intolerable.

If you didn’t know this story, what would you expect Jesus to say in his prayer? How would you expect the Messiah to pray at this moment? “Dear God, I’m ready, let’s get this thing moving.” “Dear God, I trust that everything’s going to be OK, so bring on the Romans.” I would probably expect Jesus to exude a quiet confidence in the face of death.

Instead, we get this: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.” What? Jesus can’t say that! He’s Jesus! And yet, this statement is full of the last thing you would expect from the Messiah – fear. Jesus is afraid. He doesn’t want to go through with what lies ahead. He knows what is to come, and if it’s all the same to God, Jesus would rather take a pass. Jesus knows what it is like to struggle when he prayed.

Fear is an incredibly strong motivator in our lives. It can either drive us to do things we shouldn’t, or keep us from doing things we should. Jesus had the prescient knowledge to know exactly what was coming, but often times our fear is driven more by what we don’t know. When the future is uncertain, we often fill in the blanks in our own mind with worst-case scenarios.

My grandmother used to live in California, and one summer when I was about eight I went to visit her. Now, I was a bit apprehensive about the visit because I knew that California was the home of Bigfoot, and I had an intense fear of Bigfoot. Forget that Bigfoot lived in Northern California and my grandmother lived in Los Angeles. I was sure that if Bigfoot knew I was in the state, he would track me down.

One day my grandmother went outside for a minute, and I was left in her mobile home by myself. Mobile homes tend to creak and groan a bit, and every time I heard a noise I pictured those big hairy paws reaching out to grab me. I ended up running outside and waiting in the middle of the street for my grandmother to come back. If Bigfoot was going to get me, I wanted witnesses.

Fear of what could lie ahead is a powerful force in our lives and even Jesus wasn’t immune to it. It may sound odd, but that’s comforting to me. When Jesus is facing his ultimate test, he doesn’t do so with supreme confidence. He’s scared. “Father, if it’s possible, don’t make me go through this.” If our Savior was scared, then he knows what I feel like when I am in my own Gethsemane.

Jesus’ prayer doesn’t end there. He goes on to say, “Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Ah, there’s that “will” word again. Remember in the Lord’s prayer? “THY will be done.” Prayer is not about bending God to our wills. It is about inviting God’s will into our lives – even if God’s will doesn’t match our will.

That’s hard. I always want God’s will to match mine. When I pray for someone to be healed, I want that to be God’s will. When I pray for something good to happen to me or someone I love, I want that to be God’s will. Are those bad things to pray for? I’m not praying for God to hurt anyone or dump a load of money on me or break a natural law. I simply want what I think is best.

Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane illustrates a crucial concept about how we are to pray during such times. Even in his fear and struggle, Jesus models for us how to accept what we can’t understand, how to trust in God’s presence even when it feels like God is absent. When we pray as Jesus prays here, we might not see how God is working or understand how God will bring good out of a situation, but by praying we are affirming that we believe God is present and working, so we relinquish our own rights and pray that God’s will be done.

It’s fitting that the Garden of Gethsemane is an olive tree grove. In fact, the name probably means “olive press.” Olives would be picked and pressed and the oil then used for a variety of purposes, including in anointing. A person was anointed with oil as a way of signifying God’s presence with them, as a way of consecrating them for God’s work. In fact, the term “Messiah” literally means “the anointed one.”

So maybe our Gethsemanes are not only places of struggle, places of pain, but also places of anointing. Maybe our Gethsemanes are not only places of darkness and death, but places of resurrection and new life. My time in a hospital bed gave me a new understanding of the power of prayer and opened up opportunities for me to minister to others. Maybe our Gethsemanes are places were God anoints us, consecrates us, calls us to be faithful. In our Gethsemane prayers, we kneel before God to receive anointing so we can then stand up and face our challenges.

One thing is for sure: there’s no running away from our fears. The paths of our lives lead us through Gethsemane, not around it. We all will spend time in the garden, driven to our knees by our struggles and our despair. And we may feel like our prayers are not being heard or answered. Realize that even Jesus heard “no” as an answer to his prayer. The cup was not taken from him. God did not save him from his future. But that doesn’t mean Jesus didn’t pray hard enough or that he wasn’t faithful enough. Sometimes there are things in life that we simply cannot understand.

So we walk into our Gethsemane times in life, knowing we can’t go back, afraid to go forward. But we do not face those fears alone. We are accompanied by the one who spent time in the real Gethsemane, with a soul overwhelmed with sorrow. Jesus is with us during those times. And as we pray for God’s will to be done, we are reminded that on the other side of Gethsemane, resurrection awaits. It may not be exactly what we want, it may not be our will, but we trust that it is God’s will, and that God will be with us. When we’re in those dark times, we need to be about doing what we’re supposed to do. “Lord, please take this cup from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Hi everyone! We continue our sermon series on prayer by looking at the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. Do we say it so often that we forget it’s meaning? I hope this sermon helps.

SCRIPTURE – Matthew 6:5-15

 ”And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

 ”This, then, is how you should pray:
   ” ‘Our Father in heaven,
   hallowed be your name, 
 your kingdom come,
   your will be done
      on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. 
 Forgive us our debts,
      as we also have forgiven our debtors. 
 And lead us not into temptation,
   but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

SERMON
Talking to God sermon series
#3 – How Jesus Taught Us to Pray
Matthew 6:5-15
March 15, 2009

It’s interesting that we call this “The Lord’s Prayer” because it really isn’t the Lord’s prayer. It’s the disciples’ prayer. In Matthew, Jesus teaches the prayer as part of his Sermon on the Mount. In Luke he teaches it in direct response to the disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” What he offers is what we have come to know as the Lord’s Prayer.

As we continue our sermon series on prayer, I believe we have to work hard to approach this passage with an open mind. For most of us this prayer is so familiar that we might miss what’s going on here. We all know this prayer. We’ve said it a zillion times. In fact, the Lord’s Prayer is the second most frequently spoken prayer in the world, right behind, “Dear Lord, please don’t tell me I locked my keys in the car.” The danger with such a familiar prayer like the Lord’s Prayer is that it can become rote and lose its flavor. When you’ve said it so much, do you even know what you’re saying?

Just the fact that Jesus gives us this prayer in the context of a teaching moment makes an interesting point: We have to be taught to pray. In the public speaking class I teach, I talk about how everyone assumes they know how to listen well. If you have two ears, you can listen. But actually, good listening is a skill that must be learned. Prayer is the same way. Praying takes learning and practice. Jesus gives a couple examples of not praying well – praying to be heard by others or praying lengthy prayers with the hopes of boring God into answering just so we’ll shut up. That’s not the point of prayer, Jesus says.

Instead, said Jesus, there’s another way to pray. There are several things we can learn from this prayer that are applicable to our own prayer life. If you want to be better at praying, this is a good place to start. First, did you notice how it doesn’t start? It doesn’t start by asking for stuff. Jesus doesn’t encourage us to lay out a shopping list of needs. Interestingly, asking is a part of this prayer, but not until we give God the proper praise and acknowledgment. No matter how urgent our request, it is only when God is given God’s proper place that all other things fall into their places.

The prayer starts with an interesting paradox that I think defines a lot about our faith. The statement “our Father” connotes a special kind of intimacy without being too chummy. It conveys a parental closeness with a healthy sense of reverence. But it’s followed up with “in heaven.” So right away we are encouraged to acknowledge God’s intimate closeness and God’s majestic Otherness, covering the totality of who God is for us. God is both our Parent and the ruler of the Cosmos.

And God’s name should be hallowed. To hallow something is to treat it as sacred. “Hallowed” is like “haloed.” It’s a way of giving God honor: “Your name is holy.” It’s another way of saying that the One to whom we pray is greater than we could ever imagine. We speak a lot of names during the day, but we should speak God’s name differently.

Growing up, I knew I was in trouble when I got called by my first and middle name: “Kory Thomas!” In fact, I still say that to myself when I mess up. Often we can tell simply by the tone of voice if someone is mad at us or happy with us or adoring us. I hear it from my girls all the time (say “Daddy” several different ways). But we are to speak God’s name differently. We are to speak God’s name in a way that conveys the holiness and reverence it deserves.

Next comes the first request of the prayer, but it’s not a personal request. Jesus says, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” This is not some pie-in-the-sky request. First and foremost, before we ask anything for ourselves, we must acknowledge that it is God’s will that must be done. In Jesus’ days it was believed that God’s kingdom was indeed coming soon, that God would come to earth and restore peace and harmony. People wanted that to happen more than they wanted anything else: “Your kingdom come.”

I think how we say this line says something about what we believe. I always thought you said it with the emphasis on the nouns of the sentence: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” But I learned from a very wise person that the emphasis probably belongs on the pronouns instead: “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” There are a lot of kingdoms in the world competing for prominence and a lot of wills jostling to be done (our own included!). By shifting the cadence in how we say this line, we are committing to our role of putting God’s kingdom and God’s will first in our lives.

Only after praising God, revering God’s name and lifting up the priority of God’s will does Jesus offer the first personal petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Notice again the pronouns. You will not find “I, me, mine” in this prayer. It’s all “we, us, ours.” Through this prayer we are knitted together with other believers into one community under God’s love and power. Our prayers are meant to seek God’s goodness for everyone, not just for ourselves. Prayers that seek blessings at the expense of others go against the teaching here. If we pray harm on someone else, if we pray to be lifted up at someone else’s expense, we’re not praying the Lord’s prayer.

This line about bread alludes to the Israelites’ time wandering in the wilderness, when God provided manna for them each day. Each morning, when they woke up and came out of their tents, there was bread on the ground. They were only to gather enough for that day; if they took more, it would go bad. That’s almost a foreign concept to us today, isn’t it? Taking only what we need to survive each day. I continue to be astounded at the size of the portions restaurants serve. I ordered a salad the other day and the bowl was so big I sat in the middle of it to eat. It’s almost obscene how much food we have at our disposal, and how much of it gets disposed. There’s an imbalance in this world. There are those who have way too much to eat, and those who don’t have nearly enough. This line in the prayer promises that we will take each day only what we need to sustain us, allowing others the chance to do the same.

But this line is about more than just nutritional sustenance. When Jesus is being tempted by Satan in the desert, Jesus tells him, “Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” This line acknowledges that, just like we need to eat every day, we need contact with God every day. That relationship is as essential as the food we eat. We can’t store it all up on Sunday and then not talk to God for six days. We need daily feeding and contact as a way of recognizing our dependence on God’s abiding presence in our lives. Our daily bread, our daily sustenance, is our relationship and connection with God. If we are not nurturing that, we are starving ourselves.

Next comes the line that gives a lot of people fits: “Forgive us our debts” – that part is OK – “as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Oh dear. That part doesn’t go down so smoothly. As you know, in this church we use “debts.” Other churches use “sins” and the Catholic church uses “trespasses.” It’s like the little boy who was reciting the Lord ’s Prayer and said, “And forgive us our trash baskets, as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”

That’s actually a pretty good way to describe it. People DO put trash in our baskets, don’t they? And we’re often tempted to put trash right back into their baskets! Imagine if each time we said something against someone else, we were putting trash in their baskets. That might make me think twice about what I say and do. But – to extend the metaphor well beyond its usefulness – God has emptied the trash we’ve put in God’s basket. God has forgiven us of our debts, our sins, our trespasses. And because of that gift of grace, we are compelled to extend the same to others.

This isn’t a causal relationship here. We don’t forgive others in order to be forgiven. We forgive others as proof that we have received forgiveness. We can’t open our hands to receive God’s pardon if our fists are still closed against others. Forgiveness begets forgiveness, including the forgiving of ourselves.

The last line of Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is, “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.” This has always puzzled some folks. Why would God lead us into temptation? Isn’t that Satan’s job? But a more accurate translation is, “And do not lead us into a time of testing.” There is actually a biblical history of God testing people: he did it with Abraham, he did it with Job. Jesus is simply telling the disciples to ask for God’s protection at all times against the Evil One who is constantly trying to weaken our defenses and erode our resolve. We can’t live this life alone. We need God with us.

That’s the prayer Jesus offers as a model for how we are to approach God. I think it makes some pretty amazing claims about our prayers. It tells me that we don’t pray to inform God of something God doesn’t already know or to try and change God’s mind. We don’t pray to try and bend God’s will to ours. Prayer is the submission of the creature to the Creator. Prayer is aligning ourselves in trust and acknowledging our need. When we pray, it is we who are changed as we express our dependence on God’s goodness and mercy. We are confessing that we believe in a God who listens to us.

Jesus offers this prayer, not as a command, but as an invitation. We are invited to be in conversation with the One whose name is holy but who loves us like a parent. We are invited to participate in the ushering in of God’s kingdom here on earth, just like it is in heaven. We are invited to be in relationship with the One who provides for our needs and offers us forgiveness. We are invited to find shelter with the One who protects us from the evils of the world and who is with us when we face difficult times. Even when we say a prayer we’ve said a thousand times, we are to say it as if we really believe what we’re saying, that we really do want God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done. And we take comfort in the fact that our prayers are effective, not because of how much we say or how eloquently we say it, but because we pray to a God who loves us and hears us.

Hello everyone! This is our second sermon in the series about prayer called “Talking to God.” I would love to hear your thoughts!

SCRIPTURE – Luke 18:9-14
 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

SERMON
Sermon Series: Talking to God
The Dos and Don’ts of Prayer
March 8, 2009

Today, we continue our sermon series about the nuts and bolts of prayer. As you may remember, last week we talked about why we pray, and I made the point that there really is no wrong way to pray. While we can never pray the perfect prayer, because of the Spirit’s interceding on our behalf, we can never pray a not-good-enough prayer.

I believe that is true, but I also think there is more to be said about how we pray. While the scope of what constitutes an effective prayer is huge, there are limits. We can’t just bow our heads and close our eyes and say anything we want and have it count as a prayer. Prayer is meant to be sacred speech, something we would feel comfortable saying to God. Not all prayers meet that criteria.

Here’s an example, and you’ll be glad to know that for the first time in weeks I’m not going to quote a movie. I’m going to quote a TV show. On the show “30 Rock,” Alec Baldwin plays a smarmy TV executive named Jack Donaghy. Jack is dating Elisa, played by Selma Hayek, and for Valentine’s Day he had made reservations at Plunder, a very posh and exclusive restaurant. But Elisa, being a good Catholic, insists they go to church first. Jack knows this could make them late to Plunder, but when Selma Hayek asks you to go to church with her, you don’t argue.

While in church, just as the priest is about to begin the Lord’s prayer, Jack calls his personal assistant Jonathan to let him know that he and Elisa aren’t going to make it to the restaurant on time. Instead of using his cell phone during church, which would be reason for eternal damnation, Jack tries to pass off his conversation with Jonathan as a conversation with God. He says this into his phone:

“Our Jonathan, who art in the office, hallowed be my reservation. If you are able, hold my table, at Plunder as we will not be there by seven. Have them delay our heavenly dessert, and forgive us our lateness as we forgive those who cause lateness against us.” I don’t pretend to know how God thinks, but I’m not sure that prayer made it all the way up to Heaven. That scene highlights an issue I think we run into a lot with prayer. It’s not so much a problem of what we pray but the motivation behind our prayers. The “30 Rock” story is the modern equivalent of what we hear in our scripture passage this morning about the Pharisee and the tax collector.

On the surface, Luke’s hearers would have automatically known the good guy and the bad guy in our story.  When Luke says, “Two men went up to the temple to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector,” his audience probably thought, “Oh yeah, I know who’s going to be the punchline of this story.”The Pharisee was a religious leader, a faithful servant who went above and beyond his religious duties. And the tax collector was a scoundrel, a traitor who collected money from his own people to give to the Romans.

So imagine the surprise of Luke’s audience when it’s the tax collector who went home justified before God. Why is the bad guy made into a hero? Why is the good guy demonized? And what does this tell us about the dos and don’ts of our own prayers?

The Pharisee did a lot of things right in this story, but I believe his biggest mistake was not anything he said, but why he said it. There’s a big difference between praying for yourself and praying selfishly. I’ve had people say to me, “I just don’t feel comfortable praying for myself. There’s so many other people who need prayers more than I do.” Yes, that’s probably true. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to pray for ourselves. I believe that’s an important part of a vibrant prayer life. What we have to check within ourselves is the motivations behind what we pray for.

First of all, it helps to understand that prayer is a privilege. Before Jesus came along, the main relational connection between Jews and their God was through the temple priests. If you wanted to pray or needed to ask forgiveness, you did so by presenting yourself to the temple priests and offering a sacrifice. You couldn’t call the CEO directly; you had to go through customer service.

But because of Jesus’ sacrifice, that intermediate step was rendered unnecessary. When Christ died on the cross, the gospels say the temple curtain was torn in half. That curtain represented the separation between the people and God. So through Jesus, that separation no longer existed. Through Jesus, we are given a direct line to the top. We don’t have to talk to customer service, we don’t have to sit on hold and listen to Muzak or angels playing their harps. Prayer is our direct connection to the power of God.

Therefore, it is to be used wisely and reverently. We’re talking to God! That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t share with God things we consider trivial or insignificant. Instead, I believe God likes to hear about the details of our lives. God rejoices in every aspect of our relationship. But because we’re talking to God, we need to pray in a Godly way, which the Pharisee didn’t do. He prayed loudly and proudly. Luke says he “stood up and prayed about himself.” Notice, he didn’t pray for himself but about himself. If you’re such a good person, chances are God already knows that. And if you feel it’s necessary to recite your resume to God, chances are your prayer agenda has very little to do with God and a whole lot to do with you. If we fill too much of our prayers with ourselves, we don’t leave any room for God.

Prayer is not an entitlement and it’s not to be taken for granted. We don’t have the right to pray and we shouldn’t pray like we deserve the answer we want. Prayer is a privilege and the appropriate attitude to adopt when approaching prayer is not the pride of the Pharisee, but the humility of the tax collector. He doesn’t recite his resume, because it’s not impressive. He doesn’t compare himself to others, because he’d lose that battle. He simply stands off at a distance, a sign of reverence, and asks for God’s mercy.

That’s a much different approach to prayer than the Pharisee. The Pharisee’s prayer emphasized separation and division: “Thank you that I’m not like them.” An effective prayer doesn’t point to ourselves – look how great I am, God! – or to others – thanks that I’m not like him, God. An effective prayer points to God and God’s power and mercy.

My guess is not too many of us are in camp with the Pharisee. His issue is one of arrogance in prayer and I don’t know that we always feel spiritual or devout enough to take that same stance. But I do believe we may suffer from another form of arrogance when it comes to prayer, and it was to do with how we react when God responds.

Here’s an example. A man was driving around a shopping mall parking lot looking for a space. It was Saturday, so the mall was packed and the lot was full. The man was in a big hurry so he prayed, “Dear God, please let there be a parking space close to the door so I can get a move on.” As soon as he finished saying “Amen” he saw a car backing out of a spot right up front near the doors. Happily he said, “Dear God. Never mind. One just opened up.”

This man’s error was not one of arrogance but of acknowledgement. The only beneficiary of his prayer was himself, which is inherently selfish. And he probably thought he landed this first-rate parking space because of his patience and good timing, forgetting that his prayer to God may have had something to do with it.

Now, let me state right now that I don’t believe God answers prayers about parking spaces. I think one of the don’ts of prayer is to not give God credit or blame for things that should rest on our shoulders. Often times we pray for God to alter reality when we’re the ones who created the situation in the first place. Here’s another example of misplaced responsibility. One Christmas my aunt gave our daughter Sydney a gift she had really been wanting. When Sydney told her how much she wanted this present, my aunt exclaimed, “Praise the Lord! God let me right to that toy in the store.” And I wanted to say, “Couldn’t God have led you to a flat-screen TV?” Yes, I believe God is with us and watches out for us and protects and guides us. And yes, I believe all good things come from God. But when we start giving God all the credit for the good decisions we make, we also open up the door to making God the scapegoat for all the bad decisions we make.

We have been given the gift of prayer, not ask for what we want, but to ask for what God wants. We’ll talk about this more in the next couple weeks. The ultimate goal of any of our prayers should be for God’s will to be done. I often close my prayers by saying, “In Jesus’ name.” That’s not just a formulaic involuntary saying. When we pray, we are challenged to make sure that whatever we are saying can be said in the name of our Lord. Can we ask for healing in Jesus’ name? Of course. Can we giving thanks for our lives in Jesus’ name? Sure. That’s praying for ourselves. Can we ask for an open parking space in Jesus’ name or for a flat-screen TV in Jesus’ name? To me, that’s a misuse of the privilege. That’s praying selfishly.

An effective prayer points to God by acknowledging God’s healing power or giving thanks to God for God’s work in our lives. In fact, how we come to prayer should be equivalent to how we should come to worship: humble, reverent, expectant, hopeful. Did you come here hopeful today? Did you come expecting that God was going to meet you here? Or is this just another worship, like our prayers are just another prayer? We don’t come to prayer or worship with an attitude of, “OK, what can you do for me?” “Exalt me, God, because I’m so great.” “Find me that perfect parking space.” We come to worship and to prayer with the expectation that God is present and active, regardless of the outcome. In our prayers, if we come as ourselves, not trying to be someone bigger or better or more faithful than we actually are, we leave room for God to be God. Pray with humility, pray with confidence, pray with hope. And then leave room and trust that God is at work.