Unlimited Access #2: Simple Prayer (Quotes & Scripture)

The following are just the quotes and scripture texts used in a talk called Simple Prayer, part of a series called Unlimited Access (for the whole message, link to the podcast at The Westside Gathering)

10 ways people struggle with prayer:
- hard to focus
- hard to find time for it
- no live response
- question if God is really listening
- don’t deserve God’s attention
- who’s will are we pray about God’s or ours
- fear to be let down by God
- where to start, what to do
- concerned about being to repetitive
- easy to speak, difficult to listen

We today yearn for prayer and hide from prayer. We are attracted to it and repelled by it. We believe prayer is something we should do, even want to do; but it seems as if a chasm stands between us and actually praying. We experience the agony of prayerlessness.

(Richard Foster)

Main Bible Text: MATTHEW 18:3

How would you grade the following prayers in the Bible:
Numbers 11:11b-12
2 Kings 2: 24
Psalms 137:9
Jesus’ prayer before the cross: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me…

There is no pretense in prayer. We do not pretend to me more holy, more pure, or more saintly than we actually are.

(Richard Foster)


SIMPLE PRAYER INCLUDES:

YOU: Experience (LIFE)
“Search me O God, know my anxious thoughts…” (Psalms 139)

we must never believe the lie which says that the details of our lives are not the proper context for prayer

(Richard Foster)
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians. 4:6)

we begin right where we are, in the nooks and crannies, the frustrations and fears, of ordinary life

(Brother Lawrence)

CHRIST (Cross)
Heb. 10:19-22

If the key to God’s heart is prayer, the door is Jesus

(Richard Foster)

START SOMEWHERE

Who can never master something in which the main object is to be mastered?

(Richard Foster)

Pray as you can, not as you can’t.

(Don Chapman)

What's your next step with prayer?