My new article in Priority! Magazine- Winter 2011

PRAYER POWER Gaining Prayer's Best Dividends by Jack Corbin Getz Font Size	Email this article to a Friend
Given the nature of our distracted and often fragmented lives, praying covenantally usually requires some basic structures: a place, a time, and a practice. … To help with that are three easily remembered prayer types, which, when balanced, will lead to great spiritual gain and effective praying. Share Prayer  Jimmy was driving down the street in a sweat because he was almost late for an important appointment and couldn't find a parking place. At his critical crossroad of crisis, he did what many do, he tossed a Share Prayer God's way: "Lord take pity on me. If you find me a parking place I'll go to church every Sunday for the rest of my life and give up all my bad habits!" Miraculously, a parking place appeared. With that, Jimmy looked up again and prayed: "Never mind Lord, I found one." The upside of Share Prayer is that it's portable and convenient, allowing a running "state–of–the heart" report to God, which in some cases is all the moment calls for. Other times, however, it's not what God has in mind when He asks us to be people of prayer. Far too many make Share Prayer their primary source of spiritual investment, which is akin to thinking that saving pocket change is a wise retirement plan. While convenient, compact, and often comforting, Share Prayer is no substitute for more focused forms of praying.  Subject Prayer  Subject Prayer has both great utility but also notable downsides. Such prayers grow out of hard times when we, or someone we know, need God's immediate help.  Subject Prayer takes two forms: petitions for our needs, and supplications for others' needs. When we make a promise to pray for someone else, it involves us, invests us, and indicates that we care enough pray. But not all prayers carry the same weight. Some are tossed like darts at a heavenly target, in hopes that a few will hit the mark. Others involve painstaking sacrificial intercession that requires incredible commitment and ongoing desire. While both have value, the latter speaks clearly to the level of spiritual integrity and discipline that must accompany our public promises to pray.  Certainly, God cares about everything that concerns us and He enjoins us to tell Him whatever is on our hearts, but assuming He's beholden to jump to our commands or to be our genie in a prayer bottle who ought to make everything fair and level is a disservice to both Him and prayer.  Silent Prayer Here is where great saints discover divine intimacy and mine spiritual power. Silence, more than any other form of prayer, convicts, confirms, calls, and conforms us to Christ's image. In silence, personal interaction with the divine takes place (a possible reason why so many avoid it). Of course, Silent Prayer is the most demanding form of praying to master and sustain. If you have mercenary motives or too little time to pray, don't try it. Remember, God's written promise: "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13). Half–hearted prayers apparently don't help us locate God because, as Ken Gire suggests, "God is not indiscriminately intimate."  Silent Prayer is where serious spiritual formation takes place. Devoting good amounts of time in silence with God yields perspective, inspiration, courage, and spiritual power. It's here where you gain an active relationship with the Lord because in silence, truth always has its way. (See Psalm 46:10.) Brennan Manning writes, "Silence is not simply the absence of noise or the shutdown of communication with the outside world, but rather a process of coming to stillness. Silent solitude forges true speech. I'm not speaking of physical isolation; solitude here means being alone with the Alone, experiencing the transcendent Other and growing in awareness of one's identity as the beloved."  Given the benefits of contemplative or Silent Prayer, it's worth at least half of a healthy prayer portfolio. Granted, other forms of prayer have a necessary and legitimate place, but none, combined or alone, yield the long–term benefits of silent, contemplative, meditational praying. Spiritually, we get what we pay for, and reap what we sow; therefore, why not spend spiritual capital where the dividends are the greatest? (See 2 Corinthians 9:6.) Excerpted and adapted, with permission, from Getz's book Praying When Prayer Doesn't Work: Finding a way back to the heart of God. (Available at. iUniverse.com/bookstore) Priority Magazine Winter 2011 Volume 13 Number 4 http://www.prioritypeople.org