Prayer Language
“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” Matthew 6:5 NASB
Pray – You can’t speak Italian like a native by having a lesson once a week. You have to immerse yourself in the culture and speak it every day. Learning to speak (and think) the language of the Most High cannot be accomplished with a once-a-week improvement session either. You must immerse yourself in the culture of Scripture, speaking the heavenly language every time you can and listening to the Master Teacher every moment. You don’t learn this language naturally. You must train yourself to think like God thinks in the language He uses to communicate who He is. And most of all, you must live according to the assumptions of the language. After all, you could take a class in Italian and learn to translate it, but then you still wouldn’t be Italian. You would just be translating Italian into your own language. If you want to speak Italian like a native, you’ll have to move to Italy. If you want to speak God’s language, you’ll have to move to His paradigm view of the world. Otherwise, you will just be a tourist with a phrase book.
“In Western thinking knowledge is the intellectual apprehension of reality, the mind’s affirmation of a truth perceived. In the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, knowledge is felt; it arises from an experience of God in faith and love rather than from human investigation.”[1] In Hebrew the relationship with God moves along the line of “feel this” instead of “think this.” This is why collecting information about God is useless. What matters is not how carefully I can articulate the doctrines. What matters is how exquisitely I am engaged in the drama of being with God. And a great deal of that drama occurs when praying.
But just like becoming a native speaker of a foreign language changes how you think and how you respond, so praying like a Hebrew changes how we think and how we respond. Oh, you thought it was easy. Just open your mouth and say whatever comes to mind in the presence of God, right? Wrong! Learning to pray is learning to see the world from God’s point of view, not by translating biblical culture into your common tongue. And seeing the world from God’s perspective means unlearning your natural cultural inclinations. That’s hard. You will notice the difference immediately as soon as you realize that the formal word for “to pray” in Hebrew is used less than twenty times in the Tanakh (but there are more than 500 prayers). Most Hebrew words for praying are emotional expressions of everyday experiences. Crying, pleading, agonizing, growling, shouting, singing, clapping, uttering inarticulate sounds, falling prostrate, jumping up and down, dancing and many more all describe Hebrew prayer. Are you beginning to suspect that your prayers are but a tiny translated sliver of the reality of prayer in Hebraic thought? Great! Now what are you going to do about it?
Topical Index: prayer, Matthew 6:5
A Special Request:
Today is the birthday of my son Michael. Many of you know Michael from the material that he has posted on this site. Now Michael is working very long hours with very distressed teenagers who are often victims and victimizers. He is doing everything he can to bring God’s care into their lives, but the work is often exhausting and discouraging. Would you take just a minute to write to him today and tell him “Happy Birthday”? It would mean a lot to this father to know that my son has heard from supporters all over the world. Thank you. Michael is moenm33@yahoo.com.
[1] Paul De Jaegher, One with Jesus: The Life of Identification with Christ, p. 12.
If emotions are the supercrunch of stored data, then involving emotion in a dialogue with the Most High IS how I bring All Of Me to the exchange. The cerebral experience is the engagement of the conscious mind, which is but a tiny, willful fraction of who I am, but the emotions plumb all the depths, and mine continually surprise me! The relationship of prayer then becomes a dual surprise for me, for not only am I not able to intuit ahead of time where He is coming from, I find that so many times I don’t know where I am coming from, either! I get shocked from both sides sometimes! But, it is never dull!
The Passion of the Christ
How to Make Heaven Happy
Until we engage (fully) our emotions in prayer, are we are doing is repeating words we have heard said. Prayer engages the “all”of us.. Yes, “the heart-soul-mind-and strength”- all of our human faculties. We present ourselves, (yes, “just as we are”) before the One who knows us, yet loves us with a Love we may never fully comprehend.
Prayer is both cathartic and exhilarating. Prayer covers the full range or who we have been, are and will be. Nothing, absolutely nothing is to be “excluded” from prayer. We bring the “all” of who we are, (the good, the bad and the ugly!) to the “all” we know of Him. Faith and prayer (not faith “in prayer!”) go hand in hand and increase and strengthen one another. Faith and prayer are true travelling companions.
Prayer is both revealing and rewarding. We will not be nor ever become “fully human” until we pray. Prayer is both the beginning and the end! -and.. – all parts in between! Prayer is (to borrow a popular phrase) – “where it’s at!”
The prayer that is heard in Heaven, begins in Heaven. Our Savior prayed. He was seen praying, – He was heard praying. Friend, Jesus wept! His instructions to His followers was to pray. We have not because we ask not, but we must be careful what we ask for!
We must pray according to the good pleasure of our Father! If it is pleasing to Him, He will give it to us! What pleases God? What will put a smile on His face? – Our spending time with Him, our “conversations” – either verbally expressed or hidden thoughts within. P.S. – remember to listen!
This week, we will be celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of the Lamb of God. There was a certain “phenomenon” (for lack of better vocabulary) that occurred we need to give much greater attention to, and that event was the “torn veil” of the Temple.
What do the scriptures say?
~ Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living Way which He inaugurated for us through the [torn] veil, that is, His [torn] flesh, and since we [now] have a great High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere [purified and pure] heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who has promised is Faithful.. ~
Yes, He is. “Faithful and True!!” Listen to the testimony of John:
~ Then I saw Heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for He judges fairly and wages a righteous war ~
(Revelation 19.11)
Our Redeemer is Faithful and True
Everything He has said He will do
And every morning, – His mercies are new
Our Redeemer is Faithful and True
Blessed Redeemer! Precious Redeemer!
Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree;
Wounded and bleeding, – for sinners pleading,
Blind and unheeding—dying for me!
I see prayer as living out His Instructions the best I can at all times. My emotions are certainly involved in every aspect of this lifestyle and changes as things change in my life. Not only is this loving obedience for my Heavenly Father, but a life that is praying without ceasing!
Dear Michael I pray that you would find the rest and peace of our Lord as you draw on His strength alone, and trust that the fruit and results of the work you do in that strength is not in your hands, but in His.
My wife and I worked for 15 years with traumatized teenage girls. There is no way you can do this kind of work unless the Life of God does it through you. Burnout is always an ever present danger. Some of the girls whose lives we thought we had made no difference in, came back years later to tell us how living with us was the only example they had ever known of a loving family and an example to follow. Of course others ended up with horrible lives, but the last chapter in their lives has not been written yet and the Father is still Lord of all. There is always hope in Him.
I love it-it makes me smile. It is true-when all of all is boiled down to the essential ingredient in our prayers…the heart remains. So many languages, so many opportunities for people groups to confuse and get tied in knots. But then, He knew that..the differences kept them from “getting too big for their britches”-even though after a time it would be a hinderance to the unity of those whose hearts were His….He knew that too. But He has a plan-and when it’s revealed-much to our total shock and amazement and we see HIM…I am convinced that hostility over verbiage will disappear…all that will remain is either hearts that love Him and desire Him or hearts that don’t. It will be very simple…what we or someone else didn’t completely understand the way we do (which of course is the right way) will be meaningless. The important question remains-is my heart pressing into Him? In Matthew 7 Jesus describes the answer some will get when they pridefully report all their triumphs on earth..”I will tell them to their faces, I never knew you – get away from Me, you are workers of lawlessness.” My own translation for this is – “You only caused problems and hostility and were never concerned with the boundaries of My Love…you never wanted to be one with Me..you only wanted to prove yourself….you never allowed Me to come into you-to be one with you and know you.” The question itself makes me smile because it reminds me of a story of my GGrandfather when driving a car was a huge new responsibility in the early 1900’s. In total innocence he made a huge U turn in the middle of the main street. The sheriff happened to see it and called out to him, “Hey! You can’t do that!” Waving back to him with a big smile he called out, “Ya! I tink I can make it!!” The Sheriff (small town where everyone knew everyone) laughed and shook his head..he’d explain it the next time he saw him. I know I’ve happily misunderstood things Father wants me to know and in time I understood…He helped me see because He loves me not just so He could prove He was right. It made my heart want Him even more. He is God..above all human languages – He doesn’t need them..He watches the heart.
We’re on the same page.
The more I pray, the more I hear. And experience.
And learn . . . often painfully so. More often, joyously.
Seems to me Jesus was talking a lot about that very same thing.
That’s why He spent so much time in prayer with the Father.
“Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things
which He suffered.”
“Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the
world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned
into joy.”