Praying Alone

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Jesus often spent time praying alone. Throughout the Scriptures we can find pictures of men and women who would go up on a mountain, meditate on God’s Word, and pray. There is great benefit in sitting back, removing yourself from the commotion and distractions of life, and hear what God has to say in His Word, and speak to Him in prayer about what troubles you, confessing your sins, and giving thanks for His mercies.

This is true. I know it is true. But I must admit that I don’t find this a natural practice for me. It’s hard. So often I have so many things running through my head, that slowing down long enough to hear what God has to say and speaking to him, well, it just gets pushed down on the priority list.

It would be easy to go into a discussion about how we are too busy today, we have too many things coming at us, and that we don’t have time to sit down and smell the flowers. This is all true, but I think really misses the point. The point isn’t that we are so busy. The point, rather, is that we don’t want to hear God or speak to Him. Like Adam and Eve hiding from God in the Garden, we run from our conversations with Him because we fear His anger, we don’t want to disappoint, or even because we don’t want Him to know how much we hurt or how angry we are at Him.

So how do we break the cycle of isolation from God in prayer? Here are a few suggestions that have worked for me over the years, and I would love to hear yours as well:

  • Keep it simple. Using devotional guides can be of great benefit, but don’t allow the process of meditation and prayer become more important than actually meditating on His Word and praying. If that means something very simple, like Portals of Prayer, great! If that means using something a little more extended like To Live with Christ or The Treasury of Daily Prayer, then that’s fine too. It is more important to develop the regular habit of praying than to have just the right system.
  • Connect prayer to God’s Word. For Lutherans, when we pray it is in connection with hearing God in His Word. While I may pray alone, I am never really alone. Christ prays with me. It is always a holy conversation.
  • Make a list. Maybe this is obvious, but don’t allow prayer to become so spiritual that you actually forget your own personality! I am a list guy. I am always writing lists. So if I’m going to remember to pray, and to pray for specific people or things, I am going to write it down. It’s that simple. If I don’t write it down, my own natural inclination toward busyness and distractions will drive the whole thing right out of my head.
  • Remember that Christ prays for you even when you don’t pray. If you forget to pray for a day, be at peace! Christ prays for you even when you forget. Jesus is loving and forgiving, and longs to be in your presence. He will pray for you even if you don’t.

There are many things that could be said about the privilege of praying alone. God loves it when you pray to Him! He leaves to speak to you and to hear you. Trust that praying in Him and to Him is good, and will be to your great eternal benefit.

+God be with you+
Pastor Peperkorn

From the February 2010 Messiah’s Messenger

On Praying in your Marriage

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“And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:12 ESV)

One of the many benefits which my wife and I have received from the DOXOLOGY training program has been the gift of prayer. Kathryn and I were able to have a wonderful dinner and conversation with an Australian pastor and theologian named Dr. John Kleinig. He is best known in our parish for his delightful book, Grace Upon Grace.

As Kathryn and I sat and talked with him, he asked me about my book, and specifically about the struggle that I had with prayer while I was sick and on disability. We talked, and then he told us what he and his wife have been doing for many years. They’ve made several resolutions about their common life together. Here are some of them:

  • Always go to bed at the same time. This insures that eventually or generally, you end up on the same wake/sleep schedule. It helps a marriage if you aren’t two ships passing in the night, living parallel lives.
  • Talk about the day, especially that made you rejoice, and what challenges or temptations you had. This helps you to stay focused on one another and your actually needs, not simply on talking about the weather, the children, the schedule, etc.
  • Finally, pray out loud for one another each night in the presence of your spouse. The point of this is that it focuses your life upon the life of your spouse. You know that your needs are heard by your spouse and by God Himself. It helps you to know what to actually do to help your spouse, because they have told you what is going on.

So Kathryn and I started doing this in September 2009, and I can hardly begin to tell you what kind of a blessing it has been to our marriage and our family. We are more aware of one another, we are more relaxed, and we know that for at least one little snippet of time each day, we are together and in Christ. It has helped us to focus on the needs of each of our children, of our family at large and on our brothers and sisters here at Messiah.

Why not try it? It doesn’t have to be long or complicated. It can be as simple as “God bless Kathryn. Give her a night of sleep. Help our children to rest so that they and we may rise in the morning to serve you.” You may be amazed at what God can do.

Yours in Christ,
Pastor Peperkorn

A Year of Prayer

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The Spiritual Life Council (Elders) and I are engaging in a year of prayer here at Messiah, and I would like to encourage you to join us. Each day of the month, each of our elders will be praying for members from their elder group, and I will be praying for them as well. What that means is that every single member of Messiah Lutheran Church will be prayed for by name at least twice every month. It will be even more if you add your voice of supplication to ours. What a great opportunity!

Since we are engaging in a new part of our common life together, I thought it would be helpful to consider and review some of the most important questions about prayer. Here they are:

Why do we need to pray?

  • We need to pray because we cannot do it alone. God invites us to join together and pray for one another in every need of body and soul. God Himself said at creation, “it is not good for man to be alone.” He not only gives us family in terms of husband and wife, but He gives us our church family, so that we can support one another in all of our needs of body and life.
  • We need to pray because our fears can overwhelm us. It is very easy to become overwhelmed by the changes and chances of this life. Heaven knows life is overwhelming! But how much better would each day be if you know that there are people who are calling upon God Himself to come down and be with you through all of those trials?
  • We need to pray because it connects us to both God and our neighbor. Just as we pray that God would come down and bless us, He also uses us to bless each other. Every time we pray for another person, it connects us to that person. They have become a part of your life and you, theirs. We share one another’s woes.

What are the risks in prayer?

  • God might answer. Really we should say that God will answer. Be careful what you pray for, you might get it!
  • We may start caring for each other. It’s pretty hard to continue to be angry or indifferent toward someone you are praying for.
  • It may stir us to act. That care might actually mean we try to help each other. Who knows where that might lead…

What are the blessings of prayer?

  • Prayer seeks an answer in God’s Word. We speak to God in prayer. He speaks to us in His Word. That is why for Lutherans we have always tied meditation on God’s Word to our prayer life. We’ll talk more about this in the months to come.
  • God does answer prayer. This is both a risk and a blessing. We already talked about the risk part above. It is a blessing because always does more than we could possibly imagine. He is at work forgiving our sins, bringing life and salvation, and giving us all things in His Son, Jesus. It is almost overwhelming to think about the possibilities that God has in store for us, His children. “He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He also not with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)
  • Prayer ties us together in a way that nothing else can. God is at work in our midst by His Word and Spirit. Prayer for each other in Him ties us together. As our great All Saints hymn puts it, “and all are one in Thee for all are Thine”. Prayer strengthens that tie, makes the connections and ties more obvious and clear, and helps us to rely on them all the more.

What if I can’t pray?

  • Christ prays with you and for you. Because Christ is your brother and has the Father’s ear, that means He prays for you every day, all day long. If you can’t pray, be at peace! It’s happening, for you, for your family, and for the whole world. Add your voice to yours when you can, but if you can’t, just sit back and hear the amen resound throughout the world.

What does it mean for us to call this a year of prayer?

It means several things:

  • Each week in the bulletin we will have members of our congregation listed to pray for.
  • I as your pastor will pray for every parishioner by name at least once a month.
  • Each elder will pray for everyone in their group at least once a month.

I hope you will join us in this endeavor. Who knows what blessings God will give to us by calling upon His name in faith? Only time will tell.

+God be with you+
Pastor Peperkorn
From the December 2009 Messiah’s Messenger

Whom Should We Pray For In Church?

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By Pastor Todd A. Peperkorn

I get this question often. Someone will come up to me and say something along the lines of, “I’m not sure if this is serious enough for you to pray for, but if you wouldn’t mind, would you put so-and-so on the prayer list?” We Lutherans are very stingy about our prayers. We don’t want to pray for someone too often or for too long. Maybe we’re afraid that if we pray for little things, that God won’t hear us when we need to pray for the really important stuff.

I would like to suggest to you another way of looking at this. We’ve talked about individual prayer, family prayer, and now here we come to congregational prayer. We pray for many people and things in church. We pray for the sick, the shut-ins, our military members, the President, our schools, and other things as the situation calls for it. The point is that our common prayers together should be inclusive and expansive, not stingy and feeble.

So here are a few tips for you on whether you should ask for the congregation to pray for someone:

  • 1. If you wonder if the congregation should pray for someone, we should.
  • 2. If you are concerned about someone, we can pray for them.
  • 3. If you pray for someone, we can pray with you.
  • 4. There is no concern too trivial for God’s people to pray for. God loves to hear our prayers, for the little things and the big things.
  • 5. Don’t be ashamed to ask for us to pray for you! We are here for each other, and our Lord is here for you. Let us in! You never know what great things may come of it.

So the next question is really simple and practical: how do I ask for the congregation to pray for me? There are several ways you can do this:

  • 1. Tell the pastor. When you tell him, make sure he writes it down so he doesn’t forget. You have to watch him sometimes…
  • 2. Email the pastor. This frankly is probably the easiest way.
  • 3. Put a note in the pastor’s mailbox at church. Bottom right mailbox.
  • 4. Put a note in the “prayer requests” wooden box by the bulletins.

God bless you as you seek His blessing for yourself and for all of those whom God entrusts to your care.

In Christ,

Pastor Peperkorn

From the March 2010 Messiah’s Messenger