388: How To Pray | Tim Henderson

Introduction

So, my life is filled with systems. There are way, way, way too many things that I want to do, intend to do, and expect to do, or in any case, need to get done, that I can possibly keep track of in my head. And so, over the years, I've built all kinds of systems to help me kind of like organize, kind of like an external brain pack, so that all the stuff that I would otherwise forget might get captured.

You have probably done the same thing. In fact, my guess would be that very many of you probably keep a calendar at the very least. It seems like a calendar is the first system that we develop in life, because the sort of a thing that goes on to a calendar, that you need to be at a particular place, at a particular time, on a particular day to meet a particular person, is the kind of stuff that if you screw that up, then you're going to get in trouble, right? There's plenty of things, like you could do it later, it'll defer, but the calendar stuff, there's gonna be an immediate negative consequence if you BIF it, right?

So we tend to build a calendar. You might use your phone, a lot of people use your phone, maybe you've got like an old-fashioned desk calendar, like kind of like, you know, it's like this writing pad or maybe there's something hanging on a wall. Some day timers. Barb still uses a day timer. Any other day timer types here? Franklin Covey action? Yeah. Mean, it's classic for a very long time. Okay? All that stuff is great. And you probably have developed other systems too.

In fact, besides a calendar, what are the most recurring systems that you depend on in your life to kind of keep track of that sort of stuff? Your wife. Okay. A wife is a clutch system. Right? As long as it's out of your head and into a system that you trust, Tara could be the system that you trust, and that could work pretty well. Yeah. What else do guys use? What are your systems that organize your life? To do list.

The Importance of Prayer Systems

To do lists are probably number two. Right? If you're familiar at all with whether it was Stephen Covey's approach in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. This current generation, it's really a guy named David Allen who wrote a book called Getting Things Done, which is fantastic. I have very elaborate, very detailed to-do list systems all out of the GTD framing. It's really, really helpful.

We use calendars, we use to-dos. Many of you probably use a budget. I think those are probably the big three—calendar, to-dos, and budget—because we have a scarce amount of time and money and mind space, attention. And so we build these systems around that.

My whole life is absolutely filled with systems. So imagine me minding my own business, happy with my systems, not bothering anybody, as I read this in Paul Miller's book, A Praying Life. He said this: when I do a prayer seminar, I ask for a show of hands of how many people keep their calendars electronically. Typically, about a third of the people raise their hands. Then I ask how many use a small pocket calendar, a wall calendar, or any other kind of written calendar. By that point, almost everyone, about 95%, have raised their hand. Then I ask, how many regularly use a written prayer system? And just a few hands go up, usually about 5%. Oof. That was a throat punch.

He continues and he says, we're back to the influence of the Enlightenment on our modern world. Prayer is in the category of values and opinions. It doesn't connect with life. The bottom line is that we don't write down our prayer requests because we don't take prayer seriously. When I read that, I was, it— I found that, like, so spot on, so convicting, and so indefensible in my own life.

You guys, seriously, I write down everything that is important to me. I have the most ridiculous and elaborate systems. I have incredibly complex spreadsheets about every financial aspect of my life. The number of things that I could pull up at a moment's notice to show you would be either embarrassing or impressive, depending on your perspective. Right? I have databases of all the students that I'm in contact with that were invited to come be fellows. I have very well-organized systems to keep track of all the donors that generously contribute to Blue Ridge Fellows.

Just name something important to me, and I have built a system for it. And when I read that paragraph, I did not have one scrap of paper, much less something in my computer, with a system of prayers, a prayer, like, nothing. And when I read it, I was like, why don't I? Like, why is it that I don't trust my own mind to keep track of, like, the three things that I need to buy at a grocery store, but I'm trusting my mind to remember prayer requests?

It was instantly, you know, convicting to me. And I had to admit that it must be the case. It just simply has to be the case, that I don't have a system for remembering these things because it's just not as important to me as remembering all these other things. And it hit me like a truck, and it's the worst kind of failing because it's a failing of which I was completely oblivious.

I just had no idea that I was, you know, I've kind of pride myself in all my complex systems, and there was this massive gap that I was completely unaware of. But Paul Miller's book rebuked me and it changed me. And if that happens to land in the same way with you, I'd love to help you change.

Practical Suggestions for Enhancing Prayer

For the last couple of weeks, we've been doing a series on prayer. Sloop kicked us off a couple of weeks ago. And as Sloop kind of opened the thing, the question we're trying to ask is: why don't we pray? Like, what's wrong? What are the things that are interfering that make it hard for us to be successful in this?

Sloop's take on it was, well, maybe it is that we just don't pray because we don't really think we need the help. Right? That we're generally a bunch of competent people, or maybe we've just kind of right-sized our expectations because it's not any fun to live dependent on someone else. So I'm not going to really attempt anything that's outside of my capacities. I'm just gonna, I'm not gonna shoot for things that are divinely sized, and I'll just kind of do it myself.

I think that's true for me. Maybe it's not for you righteous people, but it's true for me. Right? Quigg, the following week, he came out and he's like, yeah, it's not just that we don't think we need the help, but do you remember what Quigg's take was? He's like, I don't think it's gonna make any difference. Right? Because many of us have conducted the experiment of praying for something, and it didn't happen, or at least it didn't God respond in the way we wanted or in the timeline that we found reasonable, and so we kind of give it up as a bad experiment. Right? What's the point? I'm just talking to the ceiling, it's not gonna make any difference.

Again, I think both of those are accurate, but uncomfortably accurate. But I want to suggest a third reason today, something else that kind of interferes in our prayers, namely this: we don't pray because we really don't know how. We've never taken it seriously enough to give ourselves the same sort of assistance that we require in every other area of our lives.

What I want to do this morning is just offer you three super practical suggestions about how to take one more click up in becoming the sort of man or woman who really depends on the Lord in prayer. It's going to be a little bit of a weird message because my typical preference is to take some passage of scripture and explain it. Right? And honestly, like, more complicated, the better. The more fun it is to unpack it, the more I enjoy all that.

This is not going to be that. We, I believe in the exegetical preaching of the scripture. I believe that we want to make Christ seen everywhere in the text because he's really present. But today is going to not be our normal forte. We're going to do that again next week, and the week after, and the week after.

But today, I really want to be super practical. So I'm going to give you three ideas, none of them are rocket science, but three things that I think have been helpful to me, including what Paul Miller kind of corrected me on. So here's the first.

Practical Tips for Improving Prayer

Use an index card system to remind you to pray about the things that are important to you. In seven of Paul's letters, more than half of his letters, he opens in the first chapter by telling people that he pray that he remembers to pray for them. Listen to what he says:

Romans one, God is my witness, how constantly I remember you in my prayers.

Ephesians one, I've not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

Philippians one, I thank my God every time I remember you.

Philemon, I always thank God as I remember you in my prayers.

So, what do you do when there's something that you want to remember? Do you not write it down? We do it in every other area of life. So here's what I want to invite you to do. Get three, four, five, I don't know, half a dozen index cards and jot down on each one a category of something that you want to remember to pray about, and then give yourself a couple of key details.

Since reading this from Paul Miller's thing, I have been carrying around with me these—the growing, threadbare—these prayer cards. And there really is, there's nothing complex about it. I'll just go, I'll flip through a couple of these.

First card here just says thank you. So I just made a list of things that I want to be grateful for. Sometimes in my prayers, I'm asking for things. Often in my prayers, I'm asking for things. But I also just want to make sure that I'm, like, leaving before my eyes the things to be grateful for. Thank you for all these great gifts that you've given.

I got a prayer card for my wife, for Kelly. I love her. I want to bless her. Part of my job as her husband is to lead her. And so, there's things that I know that are hurting her, that are difficult for her, so I want to pray for Kelly.

I got prayers for my fellows, every not just this class, but next class, not just our current, but our former classes. But I want God to have the particular calling in my life to help these young men and women launch well. So I got a card for the— for the fellows, Adelphos. These are my closest friends from college.

Here's one for a particular guy. This one shouldn't really be here, but I left it here. This is Steven. Steven's going to be a fellow in next year's class. But when I made this card, he wasn't going to be a fellow in next year's class, and I was inviting him to join. And so I made a card for him, just that God would bless him in every way, give him peace, that I would be wise in the way that we talked about things, and I leave it in here because he's going to be a fellow.

And as I go through it, a whole bunch of things on these cards, you guys, they're checked off, they're done, they've been answered, God has been merciful and gracious, and so I keep them before me. Here's a card for me. Did you know you're allowed to pray for yourself? So just things I've said, Lord, help me understand your ways, live in a way that pleases you. Let me find you and experience you and know you, not just know about you, to trust in you, to hope in you.

And so what I do, it's really simple, is I keep this thing in my— these cards in my pocket, and then when I've got five minutes, I pick out— I pick it on— as I pray through the top card. Maybe I'll move it to the back and pray through the second card and just go through these categories. Now for you, it might be different categories, might be some of the same or some overlapping, but maybe they're different, doesn't really matter.

But what has been helpful as I've started this habit is, we had a guy, Sam Walker. Some of you might remember Sam and Allison. They're fantastic. They went to church here when Sam was doing his residency, now he's a doctor in Tennessee. But I had Sam in to speak to the fellows, and he has a similar habit, but instead of index cards, he just has a little notebook, probably like a little Moleskine, and he keeps it in his front pocket.

And what he told me, which just helped, was so helpful, the way that Sam framed this, is that he's got his iPhone in one pocket and his prayer notebook in the other. And you know how your life is filled with, like, five minutes of iPhone time, right? You're standing in line, you're waiting for the bus, there's nobody to talk to, and you just, you just what do you do? I don't know. You check on the scores. You're checking the headlines. You're rolling through Instagram. You're doing whatever it is that you do.

And Sam, the way he phrased it, he's like, I always have the choice. I can reach into this pocket and get out my phone, or I can reach into this pocket and get out my prayer notebook. And which one— just a conscious choice— which one are you gonna do?

Now, you're still allowed to, you know, check your phone, but for me, what that's what that's done for me is, like, every day, I take my dog on a long walk, and I usually will listen to a podcast. I've got my AirPods in and I love to learn and I'm always, I hate being bored, I'm always, like, stimulating my mind with something or another. But now, about half the time, I'll just leave the AirPods at home and I'll just turn into a prayer walk.

I'll just pull out the cards as I'm walking my dog, I'm just working through it. And I'm just trying to build into my life this habit that I will be continually seeking his face, pursuing him, and bringing before him these things that are important to me.

Maybe that would be helpful to you. I think it would be. And so, my sweet wife went to the grocery store yesterday, and she bought you all a bunch of index cards. And so here's what I'm going to do, I'm going to leave them here. You can come grab them if you want. Grab some. They cost me, you know, a dollar, so they're yours. Okay?

And maybe you grab three, four, five, half a dozen, whatever you want, and work through some categories and consider, is there a way that you would just build this as a new habit into your life to replace your little iPhone time with moments of prayer scattered throughout your day. Okay? That's one.

Incorporating Prayer into Your Calendar

Number two, back to your calendar. So you guys have a calendar, you keep all your appointments on it. I wonder, are there any specific times we've whipped out our calendars and did a comparison? Right? We're going through. Are there any appointments in your calendar where you've decided this is when I'm going to pray? Maybe alone, maybe with others.

I think a lot of you know, because I've been rather transparent about it, I have a child who's not walking with Jesus, and I set aside Tuesdays every week to fast and to pray for him. When I say fast, what that means is I just don't eat. It's really very simple. For twenty-four hours, I don't eat. It's not that long. It's not gonna kill me, and it wouldn't kill you either.

And fasting is a weird thing. It's an ancient biblical Christian tradition that we take time, we make a decision to refrain from eating as we seek the Lord's face. To be honest with you, I don't totally get it. I don't understand what's going on with that. I don't know why God is particularly interested that I would be hungry. But the nonsensibleness of it, I think, is honestly part of the point. It's an opportunity to exercise faith.

It's a weekly reminder that I am weak, that I am powerless. Just go without eating for a little while and you realize what a dependent sort of a thing you are. And it reminds me that if any change is going to come about in the world, it's going to be by the Spirit of God and not by my brilliance.

So, if God is pleased to move in response to me, humbling myself before him, and becoming more tangibly aware of how powerless I am, great. If he moves in spite of it, great. If it moves him to pity or pleasure or he takes it that I am honoring him, or if he just decides to move because of reasons of his own that I'm just too stupid to see, great. Right? Whatever he wants to do is fine.

But regardless, I have decided that I'm going to fast a day a week on Tuesdays until I am dead, until every one of my children is safe in his grace. It will be chiefly a time of pleading and asking. And when they are all safe, it will shift to a time of praise. And I hope that that shift occurs soon. But if not, so be it, because I'm not in charge. And that's kind of the point of the whole exercise.

I am, however, a guy who likes to make decisions once and never revisit them or reverse them. And so, I will continue to fast on Tuesdays for my children and for a handful of others until I die. And you are welcome to join. You can join in the fast or you can just join us at the church. We pray. We meet Tuesdays at 4:00. It's a very simple time. There's absolutely nothing fancy about it.

We meet in front of the office, we say hello, and then we start to walk, and we pray. We take a half hour, and we're just interceding on behalf of people that we love that don't know Jesus. And you could come. You could show up. You could fast. You could not fast. You could set that aside a time and not even show up physically with us, just do it in your own place. You could pick a different time. I don't care.

In your calendar, the issue is, would you like to put into your calendar some blocks of time that you say, Lord, this time, I'm going to meet with you. It's an appointment, and I'm going to keep the appointment. The only other time of the week that I do it is Tuesday mornings. I don't know why Tuesday gets all my prayer attention, but Tuesday mornings at 6:40, a group of guys and I meet to pray for revival.

It's right before my men's study that meets on Tuesdays at seven. Some of us get to get there a little bit early, and we just ask God, if there's anything going to happen good in the world, it's going to be because you pour your Spirit out. Would you do it here at this church, in this valley? Would you convict us? Would you give it a spirit of grace and supplication? Would you come? And so we pray for revival.

Brian Morgan has a brief prayer meeting on Sunday mornings. It's from 8:00 to 8:20. Be a little hard for those of you that come for the second service, but it meets in that hallway over there. It's 8:00 to 8:20. There's people that meet to pray for God's blessing on you as we worship, as we gather as a community. If you don't like any of those times, no sweat.

Start your own. Right? Get some friends or set some time alone, friends, life group, colleagues, your spouse, with somebody and say, this is going to be a block of time that I will set aside a day of the week, a time of the day, I'm gonna write it down on my calendar, and I'm just gonna say, this is what I'm doing at this time. I think, very likely, if we decided to put it in our calendars and let it be a recurring event, I think we'd pray more.

I think that there's just things in our lives, habits that we could build that would increase that net time that we're spending before His face, speaking to Him of His excellency, softening our hearts before His purposes, and asking Him for the things that are important to us.

The Power of Scripture in Prayer

Okay? So stack index cards in my pocket. Maybe you grab some. A couple of times in your calendar each week. Here's the third idea. Let scripture form the scaffolding for the things that you pray.

The two things that I pray the most about are that people who don't know Jesus would come to know Jesus, and that God would bring revival. There's other things I pray about too, for sure, things that are perhaps more selfish than that. But those are the two things that I think get the most airtime.

But imagine, let's just say that I'm praying for somebody that they would come to faith, and I've blocked off this half-hour of time of prayer. Thirty minutes is kind of a long time. Right? And so you might begin by saying, Lord, open their eyes, draw them to faith, show them your grace and forgive them. And that took what? Like six seconds? And now I've got twenty-nine minutes and fifty-four seconds. What do I do? Just say it again five hundred times? You know, I mean, you could, I guess, but I don't.

Here's what I do. I just try to go through and I mine the scriptures. I just dig through it to find places in the word of God that specifically address the thing that I'm concerned about or worried about. So several years ago, I did this about people that I was praying for that didn't know Jesus, that I want to know Jesus.

This is by no means comprehensive, but it's just a cheat sheet for me. Alright? So I'll just give you a couple of these. So I'll start with the first one: Ephesians 2.

For God so loved the world... — John 3:16

In Ephesians 2—

but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves; it is the gift of God. — Ephesians 2:4-8

If I'm praying that for somebody, I'm just going to go through it line by line and attribute it to this person. So I might say, my friend Bob doesn't know Jesus. Right? And I would say, God, it's because of your great love for us, because you are rich in mercy, that you made me alive with Christ. Would you do that for Bob? Lord, right now, he is dead in his transgressions, and the only way he's going to be saved will be through your grace.

Lord, would you raise him up with Christ? Lord, would you seat him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus? Would you do it? Lord, I pray that you would do this so that, in the coming ages, when you show the incomparable riches of your grace expressed in your kindness in Christ Jesus, that Bob would see it. He would be a partaker of it. We know it is only by your grace that any of us are saved. Would you grant him faith? Lord, I know he can't conjure it himself. It will be a gift from you. Would you do that?

Okay. That's how you pray through Ephesians 2. Right? We'll pick another one: Acts 16. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. — Acts 16:14

Lord, you open hearts to respond to your message. Would you do it again? Lord, I pray that you would show her how much she needs you. Would you make her aware of your beauty? You're sufficient to meet that, Lord. You, if you don't open hearts, hearts stay closed. Would you, you've done it before, would you do it again?

Or I'll read 1 Peter 2.

Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. — 1 Peter 2:10

Lord, there are so many people that I love that are not in your community. They're not your people. But they could become your people. There's so many that have not received mercy, but now they have. Lord, would you—I pray that Jennifer will receive your mercy. Lord, would you be gracious to her, would you be kind to her, would you open her heart. Would you—

So this is what I do. I just try to go through this. I'm just going to pray through scripture. And if it's not this—and by the way, I printed these, you can have them— put some of these down here too. And this is specifically about praying for people to come see how great Jesus is and know him. But maybe there's other things. There's a million things that trouble me.

When, whenever Kelly and I move, she does all of the work of packing the house, and I do all of the worrying that the house is never going to sell. And when I'm selling a house, I hate selling a house. Like, it's just this is very distressing to me. But I came across Acts 17.

This is a great place where Paul is preaching — it's one of the best passages in the New Testament on evangelism. It's just so brilliant. But he says this:

From one man, God made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this, so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he's not far from each one of us. For in him we live, and move, and have our being. — Acts 17:26-28

And it just stands to reason. If God determines the times set for us and the exact places where we should live, then he determines who's going to buy my house and when. Right? So when I'm selling a house, I'm just going to pray through Acts 17: Lord, you determine the time set for us. You determine the exact places where we should live. Lord, would you bring a buyer? Would you bring someone into our life? There's someone that, for your purposes, you want them to reach out to you. You want them to find you. You want to find them. Would you bring them to our house? And I pray, Lord, that they would come soon, and they would pay an exorbitant sum of money for my house. Amen.

Right? Or if you're worried, right, go to Philippians 4.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:6-7

Lord, I don't want to be anxious about anything and everything, including this particular thing. Lord, I want to come to you in prayer and petition, but I want to come in thanksgiving. Lord, so thank you for this, and for this, and for this. How many remember that and trust you? But here's my request. Lord, I present this to you. Would you give me your peace? A peace that is beyond understanding. Would you guard my heart, guard my mind, that this thing would not rob me of the joy you mean me to have in your presence? Right? So we just pray it back to Him.

By the way, this is not my idea. This is the Bible's idea. Nehemiah. You go back and look at Nehemiah 1, you can flip there, I'll probably have it on screen for you. Nehemiah 1. You see him doing this exact thing. Okay? He's got this massive thing that's on his heart, and he goes and he prays. Look at Nehemiah 1:8.

Remember the instructions that you gave your servant Moses, saying, if you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the nations.

What he's doing is he's alluding back to Deuteronomy 30. He's saying, God, you said you would, and we did. And so he says, but if you return to me and obey my commands, and even if you are exiled— even if your exiled people are the farthest horizon— I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I've chosen as a dwelling for my name.

He's paraphrasing. He's quoting back Deuteronomy 30, which says, when all these blessings and curses I've said before you come upon you and take them to, and you take them to heart where the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where he has scattered you.* He is literally, he's holding God accountable to what he said in his word.

You are invited to take Bible, like, mind that thing. Where does God speak to the things that distress you? And you can quote him back to him, say, Lord, you said this. I'm asking you to do this. Let the word of God be the scaffolding for your prayers. Okay?

So, you're gonna mind the scriptures to find the places that God has said something about what's troubling you. Make a list. Jot them down. Let God's word give form and substance.

Conclusion

Alright? There are three quick tips, and we're out of time. I gotta sit down. Okay? Index cards in your pocket, just to remind you of the things that you want to pray about. Work through, you know, check them off as he answers. It becomes a record of his faithfulness that'll help you the next time you're not sure if he's gonna come through. Make some appointments.

Join us Tuesdays at four if you'd like to or make your own time to pray and let God's word provide the framework for your prayer. Because every week we invite you to come down and to respond to the Lord.

What I want to do is a little different than that this week. As we sing a song, there are index cards, including one on the ground. Index cards down here for you. If you want them, come and get them. There are these scripture passages on praying for friends that don't know Jesus, come and grab one of those.

But I'd invite you to take one or two or even all three of these suggestions and just work them into your new habits. Habits are powerful. They really shape the trajectory of our lives. And I hope that one or more of these might be useful to you as we try to grow as a community that really lives before His face, that seeks Him, that boldly asks, that expresses gratitude for His love and for His kindness.

So these things are here for you. And if they run out, I have a few more at the connections table out in the back. Okay? Lord Jesus, we love You. Would You help us be people who don't just come to You to ask You for things, but come to You to be with You. That when we come to You, we would express our gratitude, our love, and appreciation. But we would also come on the confidence that Your love for us means You care about the things that we care about, that You invite us to ask, to seek, to knock, that You're not embarrassed or frustrated or disappointed when we ask You for things. You want us to. You want us to trust You.

Lord, You help us to develop the muscle of faith, to grow powerful in prayer, to experience Your presence when we come to You. We love You. Amen.