All posts tagged Prayer

VLOG: How Can I Pray for Someone in Intense Suffering?

by brad on May 13, 2013 in Church Resource with 4 Comments

How can I pray for someone in intense suffering? When I someone tells me about losing their child or having been sexually abused I know I should pray with them. There aren’t “answers” that are going to “fix” the situation. They need God’s comfort and to know His presence. But when I think about what to pray nothing seems “right.” Can you help me handle these situations better?

Resources: Here are several resources that can be useful in preparing for of following up with the conversation discussed in this VLOG post.

  • The Gospel for Sin and Suffering: Often we are more skilled at applying the gospel and Scripture to sin than we are to suffering. In videos three and four of the Summit Counseling Core Training we walk through how God speaks to sin and suffering differently. For this question, video four would be most applicable.
  • Article: SUFFERING_GOSPEL_article_Hambrick Here is an article that walks through Psalm 102 as an example of how God gives us words to pray back to Him in the midst of our suffering.
  • Outline of key points in this video
    1. Use the person’s name several times as you pray.
    2. Acknowledge this prayer comes with unpleasant emotions by mentioning the specific emotions this person shared with you in prayer (i.e., fear, anger, confusion, etc…)
    3. Thank God that we can come to him with these honest, raw emotions in prayer.
    4. Affirm the courage of this person to God in prayer.
    5. Thank God for allowing this person to  have a safe place to talk and seek help.
    6. Pray for protection over this person’s thoughts and emotions in the coming days.
    7. Pray that God would give them the strength to continue on their journey towards restoration.

To review the other questions addressed in this VLOG series click here.

Note: The VLOG (video-blog) Q&A is a regular series on my blog. If you would like to submit a question, it can be e-mail to Amy LaBarr (alabarr@summitrdu.com; admin over counseling at The Summit Church). Please limit your questions to 3-7 sentences. This is not a forum for to request or receive counseling. No responses will be sent to questions other those selected for a video response.

My Top 12 Blog Posts of 2012

by brad on December 26, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

This posts takes a look back at my favorite posts from this year. These are the posts, that as I reviewed through my archives, I remembered most clearly. It may be the memory that inspired the post or the conversations that ensued afterwards, but either way these are the ones that stood out to me.

  1. The Myth of Compatibility — Too often we treat compatibility as if were a noun instead of a verb. Character is a better predictor of marital success than personality cohesion.
  2. When the Holy Spirit Prays for You — Too often we try to comfort people who are suffering with Romans 8:28 without taking on the journey of verses 25-27.
  3. The Sacred “Silly” Moments of Marriage — This is a call to pay attention to how “compliments” do more than just encourage your spouse.
  4. Feel Awkward Being Expressive in Worship? Me Too — Here I reflect on the self-preoccupation of being expressive in worship distracts me from the freedom God wants to give through worship.
  5. God’s Words for “Bouncy” Anxiety — This posts looks at how Psalm 121 is a gift from God for those whose fears bounce from one thing to the next.
  6. Prayer and Talking to My Children — This was a great time of remembering that God enjoys listening to His children as much as (probably more than) I enjoy listening to my children.
  7. You Don’t Know “The Real Me” — I was struck by how sin-kept-secret could so powerfully cut people off from meaningful relationships even from people who really loved them.
  8. On Counseling and Comedy — Find out if you agree with my assessment that young counselors and young comedians wrestle with the same tactical error.
  9. The Difference Between Guilt, Shame and Regret — These three powerful emotions/experiences are often used as synonyms, but when it comes to applying the gospel we need to know the difference.
  10. Poetry Slam on Same Sex Attraction and Childhood Sexual Abuse — My reflections on a powerful 9 minute testimony of God’s restorative power in poetry form.
  11. Learning to Doubt Our Fears — I was struck by the realization that when we are afraid the only thing we do not doubt is our fears.
  12. Three Family Posts (Yes, I admit I’m cheating).
    1. Special Trip III: Youngest Son Goes to Kindergarten — The story of the right of passage trip I took with my youngest son. Great memories!
    2. Why We Do “Chili Cheese Dog Adventures” — An innovative approach helping our boys adapt to a move that has turned into a family tradition.
    3. Three Letters I Write Every Year — A romantic exercise I realized was enriching my life as much as my wife’s.

C.S. Lewis on God Listening to Prayer

by brad on July 30, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“Suppose I am writing a novel. I write ‘Mary laid down her work; next moment came a knock at the door!” For Mary who has to live in the imaginary time of my story there is not an interval between putting down the work and hearing the door. But I, who am Mary’s maker, do not live in that imaginary time at all. Between writing the first half of that sentence and the second, I might sit down for three hours and think steadily about Mary. I could think about Mary as if she were the only character in the book and for as long as I pleased, and the hours I spent in doing so would not appear in Mary’s time (the time inside the story) at all… God is not hurried along in the Time-stream of this universe any more than an author is hurried along in the time of his own novel. He has infinite attention to spare for each one of us (p. 167-168).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

The question that drove Lewis to this illustration was, “How can God hear, much less answer, the prayers of the whole world?” To put it in modern vernacular, “How does God ever get to the end of His inbox when everyone has His p-mail address?” (The “p” is for prayer.) That led to Lewis’ reflections on God and time.

What strikes me about this reflection is how innately and comprehensively I think of God as a larger and more powerful version of “me.” Often I am more prone to consider how the special powers of a marvel comic book hero would make their life different from mine than I am God’s uniqueness.

Think of the parallel this way. I am made in God’s image. A photograph or statue is made in my image. Even still, there are things I can do that a photo or statue cannot because they only reflect (and do not possess) certain of my attributes. Yes, they bear my image. No, they don’t have the same experience or perspective I have. Similarly, there are things about God that are beyond the scope of my experience because I am a finite creature bound by space, time, and fatigue.

This should spark awe, creativity, and humility. Awe is the speechless wonder that comes with knowing that whatever knowledge we have of God right now is only what our language and concepts will allow us to grasp. There is more about God in the Bible than we are capable of mining. The Bible is clear that it only scratches the surface (John 21:25). We have what is sufficient to know to bring us to where we can know God fully – heaven.

Creativity is the intersection of truth and confusion. Lewis knew that God promised to hear and answer every prayer. That truth overwhelmed him, because His view of God was incomplete. This led him to think, read Scripture, read theology, and imagine (a part of meditation on Scripture). Lewis wanted to be able to put God into words, as best he could, not to control God, but to give Him more informed worship and remove intellectual barriers for skeptics.

Humility is the response to greatness and protection of creativity. A brilliant mind like that of C.S. Lewis could easily become pridefully infatuated with the worlds it could create and the riddles it could solve. But that is unless the object of its creativity was so great that each mystery solved led to a more intimate relationship with a God so great that new, more intoxicating mysteries emerged.

These would be the “take away” from this quote. First, do not limit God to a larger version of your experience. Second, live in awe (not shame or futility) about the greatness of God. Third, allow for sanctified creativity (meditation) as you read Scripture and good Christian books. Fourth, savor humility as the virtue that allows each new facet of God to take you deeper into the next.

C.S. Lewis on God-Saturated Prayer

by brad on July 9, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with 1 Comment

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“What I mean is this. An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God – that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying – the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on – the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers (p. 163).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Before reading this section of Mere Christianity I thought that God was only prayer’s destination; that when my prayers reached the ear of God they had finally “arrived.” I don’t think I am alone in this notion. It seems to me that every person who has ever felt like their prayers were “bouncing off the ceiling” thinks of prayer this way.

When we realize that prayer is prompted by God, we can no longer imagine prayer being impeded from God. We are like Jill talking to Aslan in Prince Caspian of the Chronicle of Narnia series. She got to Narnia by praying to go. When she got there, Aslan (representing Christ) said He had called her. When Jill tried to correct Aslan, he replied, “You would not have called to me if I had not been calling you.”

But not only are our prayers prompted by God, they travel with God to God. The Holy Spirits intercedes for us even in our most unintelligible prayers (Rom 8:26-27). We begin to see that our prayers never leave God from conception to reception.

What is the practical benefit of this truth? It shows us that we are never alone. Often we pray out of desperation because we feel like we have to “cry out to God” (implying He is far away) and ask Him to “come” to our aid (again implying distance). With that mindset, our prayer only reinforces our fear until we see some change in our circumstance.

I should mention that this kind of prayer is not bad. It is honest. Throughout the Psalms, God gives us many prayers like this because He knew that we would need them (for example Psalms 44 and 102).

But more than this, God wants us to see that our prayer is a revelation of how much He has saturated our lives. As we understand the miracle of prayer, then prayer becomes a comfort even before it is answered because in prayer we have something better than an answer to our prayer – we have evidence of the constant presence of our God.

At times it may be good to remind yourself of these truths as you pray. It might sounds like this, “God, I know because I have thought to talk to you that you are with me. Thank you for not allowing me to forget or be distracted from my source of hope when life is hard. God, I know that you hear this prayer because it is being carried by the Holy Spirit and advocated for by Jesus Christ. It is amazing to realize I have the fully attention of the Trinity as this moment. As I am encouraged by that, I want to tell You of the burden that is in my life…”

Reflect on the humble boldness you would have in prayer if you prayed with a robust picture of all that prayer really meant.

Booklet Preview – Vulnerability: Blessing in the Beatitudes

by brad on May 4, 2012 in Church Resource with No comments

I am excited to announce the near release of my second publication: Vulnerability: Blessing in the Beatitudes.

The Format:

This booklet is written in a highly devotional style. After an introduction that walks you into the subject of vulnerability (in wouldn’t make sense to jump in abruptly), each beatitude is examined in five ways.

  1. Description–attempts to define the disposition, role, or activity that Jesus says is “blessed.”
  2. Benefit for Vulnerability–helps you see the connection between that beatitude and a healthy sense or acceptance of vulnerability.
  3. Implementation—provides possible ways that you could begin the process of growing in this facet of vulnerability.
  4. Personal Reflection—offers questions to assist you in examining your life in light of the beatitude under examination.
  5. Prayer—gives a sample guided prayer to help you bring this area of growth before the Lord regularly. Remember, we never grow apart from the grace of God empowering us, and prayer is the initial and primary way we demonstrate our dependence upon and vulnerability towards God. These are sample prayers to be made on your own.

Consider these sections two and three from the “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst” section.

Benefit for Vulnerability: Vulnerability requires silencing the fear of being found out. Creating more elaborate disguises does not work. Even the greatest secret agents begin to doubt their disguises when they are in a den of thieves. Acknowledging our hunger (deficiency, weakness, or insecurity) allows us to live in the real world; as opposed to the fabricated world where we have to portray that we have it all together.

This is not the voyeuristic telling of all of our problems to everyone. Rather it is placing all of our inadequacies, hurts, and sins in the hands of God to allow them to be used at His discretion for the advancement of His kingdom by encouraging, instructing, or identifying with His other hurting people. This hunger (acknowledging dependence) is a hunger for righteousness because it longs for God to redeem every aspect of our life (even the unappealing) for His glory.

Implementation: Reflect on the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30). What are the one-talent equivalents of your life; those things you want to bury and hide for fear of God’s or other people’s scorn? Make a list of events, physical attributes, abilities, or embarrassments. Before doing anything else, bring those to God in prayer and make them “available” for whenever or however He might use them for His glory.

Then pray that God would reveal to you an opportunity to use an item on your list to encourage, instruct, or identify with someone else. Study for a biblical perspective on each item on your list so that when the moment comes, your attitude, words, and actions will reflect God’s heart. Pray that when the moment comes God will give you both the courage to speak and the heart to rejoice for the opportunity. Pray that God will eventually give you the ability to rejoice and give thanks for those aspects of your life you currently do not want to acknowledge (2 Cor. 12:7-10).

The booklet allows you to patiently examine eight qualities that Jesus called “blessed” that are parts of vulnerability. With each beatitude you learn not only what to do, but how and learn to see yourself accurately and talk to God honestly about what you’re learning. In the end that vulnerability is not one, large, monolithic thing, but a collection of qualities (like the fruit of the Spirit) in which you will have strengths and weaknesses which can be overcome by God’s grace.

Ordering Information:

You can purchase a pre-order copy now on Amazon.

You can preview four sample pages through P&R.

You can also review other booklets in The Gospel for Real Life series.

Prayer and Talking to My Children

by brad on April 6, 2012 in Counseling Reflection with 1 Comment

Have you a conversation with a child lately? It’s great. There is passion over the oddest things. Strange phrases get strung together in precious ways. Subjects change on a whim. If you will take the time to listen, it is a great escape into another world.

Recently as I have had conversations with my children, I have tried to reflect on God listening to me in prayer. While I know I can’t be as cute, it has been a fruitful area of reflection.

At first I had to guard against using this perspective to trivialize my concerns. Protecting myself from viewing my prayers this way actually helped me become a better listener for my children. I realized I was asking God, who is infinitely greater than I am, to show concern to my troubles, which are minute compared to Him.

Continue reading →

Accidentally Plagiarizing Jesus

by brad on March 28, 2012 in Application Supplement with No comments

This post is meant to offer guidance to common “What now?” questions that could emerge from Pastor J.D.’s sermon on “Prayer and the Holy Spirit preached at The Summit Church Saturday/Sunday March 24-25, 2012.

Here is one of the best definitions of spiritual maturity I have heard – accidentally plagiarizing Jesus. It’s not fake and it’s not me. Spiritual maturity is the middle ground between hypocritical piety and sincere sin.

Think of the sincere affection of a child watching their father. They watch his actions, listen to his words, and study his responses to various situations. Three responses begin to emerge:

1. The child overtly imitates their father, play-acting their hero – hypocrisy (from the original Greek word meaning actor).

2. The child sincerely gives into their desires and breaks the rules – sin (a child does not have to “try” to be bad, their sin-nature just spills out).

3. The child instinctually (no play-acting) responds like their father to an unpleasant situation – maturity (plagiarizing character as if it were their own until it becomes their own).

I love these moments with my sons (almost as much as I am troubled by the moments when they plagiarize my sin). Where do they come from? (1) Affection. (2) Interaction. (3) Imagination.

It begins with affection. If we would be like Jesus, we must love God like a child loves a good father. Without affection the second two factors become forced. According to I Corinthians 12:3, it is only the Holy Spirit that can give us the affection for Jesus necessary to call Him Lord.

Affection draws us towards interaction. Our affection for Jesus should cause us to pray like a child who is interrupting a distracted father, “Papa… Papa… Papa.” Ask that child if it is hard to “pray without ceasing” (I Thes. 5:17). In their mind no adult conversation could be more important than their father’s eye contact even if they don’t want anything important.

According to Romans 5:5, it is the Holy Spirit that pours this kind of love into our hearts. According to Romans 8:15, it is the Holy Spirit that confirms and gives us a felt sense of our adoption by God which causes our hearts to cry “Abba! Father!”

Affection cannot help but give itself to imagination. Children imagine living as their hero in their own world. I often hear my children pretending to be “the grown ups” and when they do, they sound like me (for better or worse). This is when my children are on the brink of accidentally plagiarizing me. They are role playing me in situations in which they have not seen me.

This is a powerful part of prayer. We often talk of prayer as intercessory faith – believing God for something on behalf of another person. This requires imagination. Do we visualize the heart of God for the situation we and those we know find themselves in? Do we role play Jesus in those circumstances or do we only ponder “what we should have said/done”?

It is only the Holy Spirit that can silence our flesh and fears to allow us to see a response outside our own instincts. It is only the Holy Spirit that would give us words that lead to the gospel instead of our own interests or protection. When this happens – affection, interaction, and imagination are guided by the Holy Spirit – we begin to accidentally plagiarize Jesus. We begin to sound like a child who loves their father (Eph 5:1-2).

This notion of imaginative prayer can be said another way, “Jesus in my place.” We see Jesus in our place throughout the day like a child who imagines their father in their situation (i.e., place) and grows mature by virtue of their imagination. Let us see Jesus clearly in the Bible and then pray with Spirit-filled imaginations about what Jesus in my place (i.e., home, workplace, school, etc…) would look like.

Four Ways to Read the Bible

by brad on August 19, 2011 in Counseling Reflection with No comments

Many vibrant devotional lives have died in seminary. People are often surprised to learn this. Students come to seminary because of their love for God and His Word. But when the Bible becomes a textbook, it can lose its vitality. As with everything else, when you dissect it, it dies.

I remember being a seminary student who was enthralled with hermeneutics (the fancy word, along with exegesis, for principles of interpreting the Bible). As much as I enjoyed the subject and gleaned from it, the classes and books taught me to come to the Bible with dozens of questions that had little to do with God or me. I was excited about the original author, the author’s intent, the original audience, the original language, syntax, lexicon (not the little green people at the end of rainbows), and other ways to find the meaning of the text.

I still value hermeneutics, but that is not the focus of this post. This post is meant to cultivate questions for Bible study that focus primarily upon God and me (or you). The outline of the post comes from a recent video post by David Powlison on the prayer life of Martin Luther. In the video Powlison discusses four ways Luther responded to Scripture in his prayer life.

Dr. David Powlison – Martin Luther’s Prayers from CCEF on Vimeo.

Bible as Text Book

When we come to the Bible as a text book we are seeking to learn what and how to think. We want to know what is right, good, wise, and worthwhile. We come to it as innocent children eager to learn from trusted parents.

We recognize the world as a complicated and large place. We know that we are not capable of mastering it on our own. So we ask questions to fill our mind with the relevant facts and needed perspective to respond to the challenges we will face.

Bible as Hymn Book

When we come to the Bible as a hymn book we are seeking to find the majesty of God. We come to the Bible like children asking questions of their parents’ “glory days.” We want to be awed, inspired, and made to feel safe because of what we learn.

We recognize that we will never be satisfied with our own achievements. As creatures made to worship, we crave a thrill that we cannot produce. We were made with imaginations that require the presence, mission, and power of God to swim in.

Bible as Confession Book

When we come to the Bible as a confessional book we find everything we want to be (or would want to be if our perspective was right) and are not. Yet we do not find shame. We come as children who have failed and are seeking the comfort of a loving parent.

We recognize that light reveals dirt that was hidden in the shadows of our lives. But the inspiration and motivation developed in worship causes us to find value in the hard work of cleaning (okay, the children metaphor might be breaking down here). We ask questions that reveal our desire to get our character from where we are to what we see in our Father.

Bible as Prayer Book

When we come to the Bible as a prayer book we are seeking help in the journey from what we saw in the Bible as confession book to the Bible as hymn book. We come with the innocent faith of children who believe if we have seen in His Word, God can get us there.

We talk like children with their Father, when they know their request pleases the Father. As we ask God to make us more like what we’ve read and adored, we are like the child asking his/her parent to teach them the parent’s favorite hobby.

To summarize this post, as you read the Bible, never forget how God says we get into His kingdom and (my inference) come to understand His Word, “Truly I say to you whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child shall not enter it (Mark 10:15).” Let your Bible reading echo the heart of a child peppering his/her parent with questions of admiration.

What Makes Heaven, Heavenly?

by brad on May 9, 2011 in Counseling Reflection with 1 Comment

A Counselor Reflects on Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

“The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a ‘Heaven’ for them – that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, un-shakable kind of happiness God intends for you (p. 81).” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Am I prepared to enjoy Heaven? When I take away the presumed “yes,” then this question is quite startling. I might be the kind of person for whom Heaven would be miserable or, at best, boring. Heaven might be an acquired taste that only those who have been transformed by God can enjoy.

Considering this question for a moment has made me realize how self-centeredly I have thought about Heaven. Honestly, I have always thought of it as my Heaven more than God’s Heaven. I thought of it as an eternal playground built for my preferences and specifications. I thought of it as a place where “my will be done” was the guiding force.

Unless that changes, my Heaven might actually be Hell (C.S. Lewis fully develops this theme in his book The Great Divorce). Unless my way of thinking were renewed ,then my dreams come true would be so inherently contradictory, consuming, exhausting, disappointing, or otherwise damaging that if I had to live with them for eternity it would be torturous.

This reveals another dimension of my depravity: I am unable to enduringly desire and enjoy God’s goodness apart from His grace. This should humble me greatly, but not necessarily in the sense of shame (which is not really humility at all). It should humble me when I disgruntedly try to tell God He has not been good.

Discontentment is predicated on the assumption that I know (or get to define) what is truly good. If C.S. Lewis is right about Heaven, then discontentment is not only wrong but foolish. I am much more like my 4 year old who wants to only eat marshmallows for every meal than I cared to admit. I think I know what happiness (Heaven) is and am offended by anyone (even God) who would tell me differently.

If I truly believed this, I would pray differently. I would ask more questions and seek more guidance while making fewer petitions. Not that petitions are bad, but my petition-to-question ratio displays a confidence that I know what I am asking for and how it should be defined.

I pray, “Lord, help me lead a healthy family” assuming I know what “good” is and what “lead” means. It might do me more good (in terms of refining my character, not altering God’s willingness to answer) to pray, “Lord, show me more of what a good family is and how you would have a husband to lead one.” With that prayer, I am allowing God to define Heaven and lead me into it rather than verbally drawing the dots and asking God to connect them.

This view of Heaven excites me more than my previous perspective. This understanding reveals how Heaven can truly be “better than I imagined” because my imagination is not yet prepared to ask for Heaven. But as God continues to refine me I will see more clearly through a dim glass and those things that I want will be in line with the eternally satisfying place God has prepared for His children.

What Does Your Prayer Life Say About God?

by brad on April 1, 2011 in Application Supplement with No comments

This post is meant to offer guidance to common “what now” questions that could emerge from pastor J.D.’s sermon on Luke 11 and 18 preached at The Summit Church Saturday/Sunday April 2-3, 2011.

We usually think of our prayer life as saying things “to” God (praising God, making requests, or having conversation) rather than saying something “about” God (evaluation of His character, power, or involvement). But prayer does both, and what our prayer life says “about” God often determines when, if, how, and about what we pray.

Think about it as if you were about to have a conversation with the President of a major company. What you said “to” that person would largely be shaped by what you thought “about” them. Were you a fan of their product? Did their product harm you? Did you want their financial support for a cause? Are they your spouse, parent, or sibling?

The same is true in our prayer life. In this blog post, we will look at five things our lack of prayer can say about God. These are not the only five things, but are meant to help you evaluate your own prayer life; not merely as a discipline but as the expression of a relationship.

  • God is powerless. Often we do not pray because we do not believe God can do anything about our struggle. We view our struggle as “outside God’s jurisdiction.” We view God as constrained by the situational variables involved like Superman is constrained by kryptonite.
  • God is uncaring. Other times we do not pray because we do not believe God will do anything about our struggle. We might believe we are too insignificant for His attention. We may believe we have sinned in way that removes His willingness to intervene for us. We may believe that God is just the Creator and doesn’t care about our prayer, because He just doesn’t care. Sometimes we view God as uncaring and hesitate to pray because we have reduced “caring” to “giving me what I want most” and we fear being told “no” too much to ask.
  • God is irrelevant. Prayer may believe that we have limited God to addressing “spiritual problems” and reduced spiritual problems to church, worship, and evangelism. We might not pray because we believe our daily concerns are not on God’s job description. In this case we don’t pray for the same reason we don’t talk to a plumber about our computer problems.
  • God intrudes on my independence. If we are honest, there are times when we don’t pray because we do not want to know what God might say. We are like the child who wants to “do it all by myself.” Praying would require acknowledging a level of dependence that our pride does not want to see.
  • God is a set of wisdom principles. Sometimes we confuse prayer with contemplation. We might think, “I already spend time trying to ‘figure out’ my struggle, isn’t that the same thing as prayer?” This misconception can often be reinforced when we ask for prayer and immediately get met with suggestions. Another form of this misconception would be, “If God has already given me the Bible, what more could He have to say?” This would be the equivalent of a teenager thinking his/her parents didn’t want to talk about peer pressure, because they had already told him/her to resist it. There is power in a good, conversational relationship that enables us to live out the principles.

The big point is this, if we do not pray, it likely reveals a wrong view of God. “Trying harder” will probably not change the belief(s) that impedes our prayer. If we want to become people of prayer, we need to examine our beliefs and get to know God for who He really is. Hopefully these reflections equip you for the self-examination.

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