Deeper Prayer

Paul, a Man of Action, Brought to His Knees. "If you really want to know where a person's heart is, listen to their prayers." -Unknown There is no doubt that Paul was a hard-charging Pharisee before meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus , yet being silenced by the presence, power, and voice of Jesus changed him forever. For three days, he lived in utter darkness, filled with shock and confusion, refusing food as an act of repentant fasting fully seeking God's direction for his life. In a flash of light and with a few words, this man of action, this leader of leaders, this pharisee of Pharisees, was reduced to a blind, helpless, broken, and silenced man waiting for God's direction. Paul, who was blind, refused food, water, and any form of comfort and did so for three days. What was going through his mind? What was swirling through his thoughts? Did this experience make him a more contemplative man, a more thoughtful soul, or more dependent on God than his natural talents? The answer to all those questions is yes because God is in the soul-shaping business. Michael Green wrote, "God, in his goodness, chose this most unlikely man to be a model to Christians in the matter of prayer … Saul of Tarsus, the energetic persecutor, shows that whatever our temperament, our job, our skills, our weaknesses, God can make us men and women of prayer, I am so grateful for that. There is hope for the likes of you and me!" In our relationship with him, he does his sacred work in the silence of pain and the joys of victories. So, after Paul's conversion, he heads off to Arabia for three years (Galatians 1:17). Spiritual leaders are known for their wilderness experiences, for it is during these experiences that God does a deep work in the heart of a leader by testing their spirit, character, and resolve. Frederick Buechner describes the wilderness experience with these words, "To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment, nonetheless. Even in the wilderness–especially in the wilderness–you shall love him." Moses had his Midian. Elijah had his Mt. Horeb. John the Baptist had his wilderness. Yet Paul spends three years in Arabia. Some speculate it took Paul three years to work out the theology of his Jesus encounter in Damascus to fully grasp the gospel (Galatians 1:11-12) and his specific calling to bring it to the Gentiles (Galatians 1:15-16). In all this, God was molding and shaping Paul into his instrument of perfect usefulness. Over 38 years of ministry, the seasons of brokenness are the ones that have shaped me, molded me, and ultimately propelled me right into the center of God's missional activity and profound fruitfulness. I have seen a pattern emerge in my life with greater intensity, particularly during the startup or transition phase of a new ministry assignment. In those early church planting days, I spent hours laying on a map of our little town and praying for God's Spirit to fall on it and show us how to reach it with the love of Jesus—those hours prayerfully kneeling over a little cardboard file box that held all the financial records of our infant church as it tidier on the brink of economic solvency. During seasons of prayer and fasting, we called the church to cry out to God because we were threatened to lose our rental space. The only rental space large enough to house our Sunday Morning Gatherings at the time. It is the hours, months, and years of discipling believers, investing in potential leaders, and mentoring current leaders, trusting God to use your meager efforts to grow up a church and grow a church that was actively engaged in God's mission. In every twist, turn, victory, and setback, God shaped my soul and taught me that we advance on our knees in God's mission. Even now, as we are working on a succession plan in our current ministry, we prayerfully and painstakingly ensure that every detail is covered to ensure we may have a spirit-filled, smooth, and successful leadership transition. God is sovereignly taking me on the spin of the potter's wheel, molding, shaping, and smoothing the rough spots out of my life while quietly reminding me repeatedly that my life on the potter's wheel is never over while I am on this side of heaven. And my greatest posture as a soldier of Christ is kneeling humbly before my Commander and Chief, ready to take his orders. So, we begin our journey through the deep recesses of the Apostle Paul's prayer life. Those written prayers and prayer requests are found in his correspondence to the churches he had planted and the leaders he mentored. We have chosen to make this a chronological journey, to travel along with Paul and his companions, and to understand the background for Paul's prayers of thanksgiving, adoration, and earnest petitions for each church and leader he encouraged. From his earliest prayer to an infant church in the city of Thessalonica to his final prayers for his disciple, protégé and "true son in the faith" Timothy. Some believe that it is in these prayers of thanksgiving, especially at the beginning of the letters to the churches, that we find the keys to understanding the whole of Paul's letters. I would say that this has been my experience as I have preached many of these epistles over the years of pastoral ministry. I have discovered another level of richness and depth to their message in understanding them in the context of a prayer offered to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. My prayer for you is that you will not only get to know this man of God on a whole new level as you read, meditate, and study his prayers but also that you will get to know the God he loved, worshiped, served, and eventually gave his life for: the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.