Prayer is listening
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of prayer? For many of us it is asking. This comes from a basic misunderstanding of the nature of prayer. We often think of prayer as persuading God to do something for us, yet He knows what we need before we ask and He doesn’t need us to tell Him. (Matthew 6:7-8)
The essence of prayer is finding out what is in God’s heart. He wants us to discover what He desires to do in the world so that we can do it with Him. Prayer is all about RELATIONSHIP. Jesus demonstrated his own dependence on revelation from the Father when he prayed. He spent long hours alone with the Father:
“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself: he can only do what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19).
“The words I speak to you are not just my own. Rather it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (John 14:10)
How did Jesus see what the Father was doing, or hear the words the Father was speaking? By LISTENING in the place of prayer. “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” (Psalm 84:10). One day listening is better than 1000 days, nearly three years, of work! Jesus knew that He could do nothing by Himself. He was the Son of God, yet He put Himself on the same level as us, he emptied Himself (Philippians 2:7), to show us we too could live a godly life. Notice in John 14:10 the words of God are also His work. As we speak His words His work is accomplished. How powerful then is the place of prayer were those words are received.
A lesson from two sisters
Do we really believe Him when He says, “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Often we are like Martha in our approach to Jesus. We love Jesus and want to serve Him, but we act before listening. We do what we think will please Him without waiting to hear what He has to say. The result of Martha’s actions was that she was, “distracted, worried and upset”. She felt dissatisfied and isolated, “my sister has left me to do the work by myself” (Luke 10:40). Watch out for these traits in Christian service, they probably point back to a lack of listening.
It’s easy to pay lip service to the fact that Mary had chosen the better part, but do we really believe it? Our lives show what we believe.
We can have a strong desire to serve the Lord when we are born again, but this can get mixed with the old nature:
- a desire to prove our worth
- a desire to ‘earn’ His love
- a desire to ‘earn’ the approval of others
The human nature is anti-GRACE. However God’s bottom line is that we are loved because we are loved. (Deuteronomy 7:7,8). It is not because of anything we do!
A lesson from experience
A few years ago I learnt a hard but very precious lesson in Egypt. I used to work as a missionary in another North African country, and the Lord gave me a prayer for Christian Egyptians to come and witness there. I was so excited to have the chance to visit a group of Egyptians who were knowing a special touch from the Lord. They were seeing hundreds, and in time thousands, turn to God, and many miracles and healings. When I attended their meetings I could feel the presence of the Lord so strongly. I would have called what was happening revival, but they said that until the Muslims begun to be touched (the main move was among the nominally Christian minority) it was not revival.
I asked for a meeting with the leader of the movement. I felt sure that he would recognise the call for Egyptians to go to other parts of North Africa. Most people from where I was working would not even believe that there were Arabs who were born into Christian homes. When I spoke I could see him looking at me with such concern and such love. After letting me exhaust my case he simply shook his head and said, “It is not time yet”. I was devastated. Didn’t he know people were dying without Christ there? How could he say it wasn’t time?
That night I broke my heart. A dear friend tried to comfort me and point me to what the Lord was doing. She asked some hard questions. “Do you love serving the Lord more than you love the Lord Himself? Does your security come from what you do? How would you feel if your position and reputation were taken from you?”
As I quietened down and started to ask myself those questions the Holy Spirit began to convict me. I read Jesus words to the Ephesian Church:
“I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance………yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent.” (Revelation 2:2-5).
I had been so busy working for the Lord; I had lost the joy of loving him. That night something was renewed in me. I fell in love with Jesus again. I heard Him speaking of His longing for me, of how He had missed me, of how lonely He was without me. I felt as though I was born again again! I never want to lose that intimacy with Him. Oh, and by the way, Egyptians did go and continue to go to other parts of North Africa and the Middle East, including 'my' nation. However, they did it in His time and in His way. The prayer was not wrong, but I had not understood the timing. I’d jumped into action before the Lord had finished speaking, so eager to serve, not so eager to sit at his feet.
Prayer exposes our helplessness.
In the place of prayer we recognise our own helplessness. If He doesn’t speak we have nothing. Prayerfulness exposes us before God and we can’t hide in activity, even in what we might think of as kingdom activity.
The place of prayer is first of all a place of listening. It is a place of utter dependence on Almighty God. It cuts across pride. When we come to pray, we need to quieten our thoughts, anxieties and plans. Sometimes this seems almost impossible to do. I find it helps me to read scripture aloud slowly, trying to drink in the meaning. In doing that, perspective comes and my inner storms of emotions gradually die down. It seems as if our souls and spirits are only so big. If they are full of unrest there is no space to receive God’s word. We need to empty out the anxiety etc. and create space inside for Him to speak. A summary of Philippians 4:6 could well be “don’t worry, pray”.
Learning to hear His Voice
Coming back to the story of Mary and Martha, I imagine that His gaze upon Mary, as she sat at His feet to listen, was one of great tenderness. He still longs for our company! He invites us to enjoy His presence, not demanding anything, simply loving Him. If we put ourselves like Mary in a place of listening, then He can speak when He wants too. Good friends do not always need to be speaking. It’s good just to meditate on how wonderful He is.
Learn to recognise His voice, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10:27). The more we know Him, the easier it is to recognise His voice. We can know His voice in many ways - for example, scripture “coming alive”, a growing conviction, a gut feeling, godly preaching or teaching, the advice of a friend that suddenly carries more weight than the words they have spoken. The Lord knows our innermost beings. He has created us to be unique, and He has special and intimate ways of speaking to us. Someone I know who is crazy about engines has great revelations at times as the Lord speaks to Him through nuts and bolts. He is more likely to speak to me though flowers.
As we think we hear Him speak we can quietly test the word. “Is this really what you are saying Lord?” We wait on Him as a servant waits on his master to understand exactly what his wishes are. In that quiet place our spirit can witness with the Spirit of God, “Yes, this is His word” or maybe “He is saying something like this, but I haven’t yet understood exactly what”. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit,(Romans 8:16). If we have a word of guidance, others we respect can test it. With major issues the Lord often speaks again and again through many different things to assure us that it is His will.
Beware of agreeing on what God should have done
If we look again at Mary and Martha we see that when Lazarus died they said exactly the same thing to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32). Beware of agreeing with someone about what God should have done; it creates a barrier between you and Him. He has something to say, but you block it with your presupposition.
Jesus gently and graciously got through their barriers because the relationship was strong. With Martha He conversed and revealed a tremendous truth, “I am the resurrection”. Up until then, she had held a doctrine, now she was faced with the embodiment of that truth, (John 11:24-25). Her mind was overwhelmed, but at least she could say she believed in Him. She gave Jesus the opening to meet her mind.
With Mary, she again fell at His feet, the place she knew she had with Him. Yet because she knew Him more intimately, she was even more hurt. She couldn’t understand why He hadn’t answered her prayer. She sobbed to express her intense hurt. Jesus was, “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” and He wept (John 11:33 Amplified). Maybe He was weeping for her unbelief, but I think He wept in fellowship with her, in deep agony for Mary. Sometimes when we listen to Him we hear weeping. Mary gave Him the opening to meet her heart, and in return it seems Jesus had the freedom to work the miracle: “Where have you laid him? … Lazarus come out!” (v34, 43). His word has such power and authority. This word is worth listening for!
What love can overhear
In John 12, Mary once again is found at the feet of Jesus, acting according to what her heart told her. Reason, in the shape of Judas, dictated that if Mary wanted to bless Jesus she should sell the perfume and give the money to the poor. Jesus rebuked Judas since He knew his heart, just as He knew Mary’s. Mary was not acting out of knowledge, but out of love. The jar contained her dreams of marriage - every Jewish girl kept such a thing for her wedding night. Not much more than a week after she anointed Jesus’ feet they were pierced with nails. Did she catch something of this is her spirit?
Mary was the only human being that helped Jesus on the way to the cross. Even Peter had tried to stop Him. Jesus knew it was His anointing for burial. If this is the same woman as in other gospels, Jesus gave a great promise, “Wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her” (Mark 14:9). In the same way, if we are sitting at the feet of Jesus we can touch the nations. Our priority is to hear what He is saying, then do it. Practice the art of listening.
‘Remember that Jesus Christ’s silences are always signs that He knows we can stand a bigger revelation than we think we can.’ Oswald Chambers
Assessment: Prayer is Listening
- Keep a ‘listening’ prayer diary for a week. Record what God has said to you, not just what you have said to Him.
2) From your ‘listening’ prayer diary discuss what you have learnt about listening and anything you want to share about what you have heard whilst listening. (Include any difficulties you had and how you are overcoming them).