Dear Pray-ers,
I want you to learn about prayer, by praying.
In 1977 I taught a course on prayer at Northern Seminary, in its Master of Divinity program. My main assignment for the students was to pray thirty minutes, every day, for twelve weeks. I knew that, in a course on prayer, students had to engage in actual praying. To not pray in a prayer class would be like studying swimming, while never getting in the pool.
A few students objected to this assignment. Instead of actually praying, they wanted to read books, and write papers, on prayer. How absurd! I knew my students would learn more about prayer by praying, than can be gotten from reading books (like this one!) or writing research papers.
Imagine a research paper on swimming, by an author who has never entered the water. The purpose of a swimming class is to bring us into relationship with the water. The purpose of the Bible is to bring us into relationship with God.
As wonderful as God’s Word is, God himself is better. When the psalmist sings “better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere,” it’s because the presence of God is there.
It's like this. I’d rather talk with my wife Linda than read a book about her. I prefer sitting on the beaches of the Caribbean Sea, more than reading about it. I’ll take eating Gino’s Chicago pizza over looking at photos of it. Better to taste and see for myself, than read about how good it tasted to others.
Eugene Peterson said he wanted to do original research on praying, rather than dispense hand-outs about praying. Peterson wanted to teach from his own experience, and not live as a parasite on the first-hand spiritual lives of others.
My dear sisters and brothers, I counsel you to pray, and discover, first-hand, the possibilities and actualities available in God’s presence.
Love, PJ
ASSIGNMENT
Identify a place where you can get alone with God,
with minimal distraction,
and pray.
Begin with thirty minutes.
