How to Pray for An Hour

 

Currently, on my blog, I am answering a backlog of questions. Today’s question revolves around a statement I put on Twitter some time ago: “Grateful to my Dad this morning, who taught me how to pray for longer periods of time. What a balm it has been through these years. If you do not, it is one of the most worthwhile things you can learn. What, could ye not watch with me one hour? (Matthew 26.40)” To which statement I received the query, “Well, what did he teach you? I want to learn!”

A pic I snapped while praying with
my Dad before a church service
in Chicago. 

I surrendered to preach at fourteen. Immediately, I began to take my walk with God seriously. But although I knew I should read my Bible and pray, I had done very little praying up to that point. I prayed for meals and in Bible class, things like that, but I did not know what it was like to labour in prayer, let alone to do so for lengthy periods of time. As I began to fumble my way toward that, I stopped my Dad one day and at random asked him, “Dad, do you ever pray for an hour at a time?” He affirmed he did. When I asked him how, he told me to give him a few days. Some time later, we sat down, and he handed me a piece of paper with a few simple handwritten thoughts. I think I still have that piece of paper in my files somewhere. Regardless, I remember what he said. Further, I put it into practice almost immediately and have used it in one form or another hundreds of times since.

Basically, he told me to do three things. Confession. Praise. Prayer.

First, if we want to be in the Lord’s presence, we must make sure we have made right what had been wrong between us. The Holy Spirit is always at His quiet work in our hearts, convicting us both of what we need to stop and of what we should begin. As I write this sentence, I am conscious of some areas of my own life where this is the case. If I am telling God, “No,” in either of these areas, I cannot reasonably expect Him to welcome me into His presence or listen to me when I talk to Him. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. (Psalm 66.18) Nor can you. Thus it is, we need to take the time to ensure the accounts are clear as we enter into prayer.

In my case, I have found it helpful through these years to write these things down. When I began praying at length as a young man, it was in a room with a whiteboard. I would begin not with words, but in silence, by listing the things I knew I needed to confess to Him. Nor would I rush through this. While it is not good to linger in sin, it is good to take the time necessary to realize how badly we have wronged Him.

This part of confession should be painful. Do not race through it. Only then, after the silence had stretched long between the Lord and me, would I begin to speak. I would say those awful things out loud, one by one, to Him. I would not justify or excuse them. Context may make sin understandable, but it cannot make sin better. I would admit I was wrong, tell Him I was sorry, and ask Him to teach me to view sin as He did. At the end of this period, usually about ten minutes or so, I would slowly lift the eraser to the whiteboard, and with tears pouring down my cheeks, I would erase those ugly terms. The board would be white again, and so would my heart.

It was in this suitable frame of mind that I would turn my mind toward the second of my father’s instructions: praise. Dad told me praise involved two sides or aspects. The first involved thanking God for what He had done for me. The second was more direct. I was to praise the Lord for who He was, for His attributes. I found biblical support for this in Psalm 150.2. In a lengthy stretch of psalms calling on us to praise the Lord, we find this admonition: Praise him for his mighty acts: Praise him according to his excellent greatness.

Over time, I developed two primary praise lists as a teenager. The first was a list of things or people for which I was grateful. For example…

…salvation, Heaven, the Holy Spirit, my Bible, my call to the ministry, friends, godly influences like my Sunday School and Christian school teachers, the sorrows that drove me to prayer, parents, siblings, food, clothing, shelter, church, America, health, answers to specific prayers, books, provision, protection, education, a good mind, hope, opportunities to preach, the beauty of creation, etc.

The second was a list of God’s attributes that I saw displayed in the Word of God and demonstrated in my life. For example…

…power, wisdom, strength, holiness, knowledge, understanding, justice, grace, creativity, thoughtfulness, kindness, care, mercy, love, faithfulness, etc.

Taking each one of those mental lists one at a time, I would write them down on the whiteboard. I would then walk around the room, thanking the Lord for each particular thing/person/attribute in detail as I thought about how they had impacted my life. After I had thanked God for His mighty acts in my life, I praised Him according to His excellent greatness.

At this point, my heart was well and truly warmed toward Him. I had cleared my soul of any accumulated refuse and spent time detailing His goodness in my life. In such a spirit, last, I turned to my requests. In such a frame of mind, I would not pray selfishly. I would not whine or complain. I would not bargain with God. I would not come to Him seeking the advancement of my kingdom. God, His aims in me, and His work through me would be uppermost in my mind. And the words of supplication which flowed from my tongue reflected that.

As the years of my life have become decades, my prayer requests have shifted. But the petitions I took to the Lord back in those days were sincere. I asked for help in difficult relationships, wisdom in responding to people and events around me, power and blessing on my preaching and my bus route, protection from temptation, for God to turn the hearts of those I loved who were doing wrong, for unsaved people to come to Christ, for missionaries and preachers I knew, for my father’s ministry and my mother’s sorrows, for my fellow students, and such like.

Sometimes I would list things on the whiteboard and pray through them. Other times, I would simply walk, and the jumbled fears and hopes of my heart would tumble out before Him. To this day, I still prefer to walk when I pray.

How long did each of these sections take to do? It varied, of course, with where I was spiritually and what was pressing in upon me on specific days and seasons of my life. Essentially, though, it worked out to be something in the neighborhood of this: 1) Confession, 10 minutes; 2) praise, each half about 10 or 15 minutes, and 3) prayer, about 20 minutes. Beloved, it is amazing how quickly an hour passes in such a delightful occupation.

There are, of course, many other approaches to prayer. As the years have turned to decades, my prayer and praise lists have multiplied. But the bones of what my Dad furnished me forty years ago became the skeleton of my prayer life ever since – confession, praise, and prayer.

If you have not yet prayed for an hour, let alone done so consistently, may I gently ask you to stop right here for a moment? Get down on the knees of your heart and ask the Lord to grow you deeper in prayer. Then set aside a time this week to begin. Then do it again next week and the week after that. Start at the beginning. You will find Him the most welcoming of hosts as you come to His throne.

I promise you this, if you will draw nigh to Him, He will draw nigh to you. He is there all the time. His heart is open toward you.

What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?

You can.

 

 

 

 

The Prayer Retreat

          In between series, I have decided to empty my mailbag. One of the questions that come to me from time to time is about my prayer retreat. I have resisted writing about it publicly for quite a while for two reasons. First, prayer is a very private thing to me, and I am loathe to pull back the curtain. Second, I have no desire to give the impression that someone should pray like me to be spiritual. But as the question has kept coming, I have pondered it, and a discussion of it may help a few. So please accept this in the spirit with which I offer it.

How It Began

          Although I grew up in a pastor's home, I did not get serious with the Lord until I was fourteen, when I surrendered to the call to preach. I asked my Dad to show me how to pray for an hour, and he did. I began to apply that while delivering my paper route. Later, I asked the principal at the Christian school I attended if I could use the church auditorium to pray during my lunch hour, and he consented. In the process, I began to learn what it meant to be alone with God.

          Many years later, after accepting my Chicago pastorate, I struggled to find places to be alone. Literally. It was a big, busy city. I hungered to get out into God's creation, just me and Him, to be still, to listen to Him, and to pour my heart out to Him. About fifteen years ago, one of our families returned from a vacation out of state and told me about a prayer cabin they had seen. "Prayer cabin?" I said to myself. And a light bulb went on in my mind. I had never thought of such a thing, but immediately it appealed to me.

Sitting down at my computer, I pulled up a search engine and went to work. After several weeks of looking, I found a place I thought would work and scheduled my first one. I have been back many times since.

How Mine Works

          Each Autumn, I schedule a Monday-Saturday prayer retreat. I inform my church, but only my wife knows where I am at specifically. The place I choose to use has three one-room huts on an 80-acre wooded parcel in a rural area of the  Midwest. There are trails cut through the woods and benches/seats scattered throughout. In all my years there, I have seen another person a handful of times but never spoken to them. My cell phone gets no reception. There is no television or internet available. I am about as alone as a man can get in modern America for that week.  

          I take enough food for the week (there is a kitchenette in one corner), my Bible, a songbook, a few books I am working through, my laptop, and all my prayer lists. During the day, depending on the weather, I will load my backpack with food, water, a book, my Bible, and my prayer lists and hit the trail. Sometimes, I come back for lunch and then leave again. Other times, I sit in one place for most of the day, reading, thinking, or praying. At least once each week, I will stay out until the stars come out, singing as the sun descends and God's world quietens down for rest. In the evenings, I write my wife a continuing letter I give to her when I return. I also use the time for planning the following year, such as my preaching calendar, church projects, and Brennan's Pen projects.

          At the end of the week, I pack my things, clean my cabin, and drive back to the world.

Some Thoughts For Your Consideration

          First, it is vital that you are away both from your world and the world. I suppose it could be done in a hotel if you were highly disciplined, but I rather doubt it. Either go somewhere your phone and the internet do not work or else have the character to leave them both entirely untouched. Yes, I know your people need you. But they need you to reach out and touch His face more. Yes, I know there will be emergencies. Those emergencies will still be emergencies when you return. When you leave, leave.

          Second, if you have small children yet at home, be conscious of this. I went for shorter periods when I was younger. My wife needed me home, and I understood that. As I age, I expect to go either longer or more often. But do not hurt your wife or family by your absence in their tender years.  

          Third, expect to come face to face with some uncomfortable things about yourself. We are so good at hiding ourselves from ourselves. We use our schedule and our screens to do so at an alarming rate. Your prayer retreat will have neither of those. At first, it will be enjoyable, then it will be disturbing, then it will be horrifying. Then you will see God, and it will be beautiful.

          Fourth, I have found it helpful to ramp up my time with the Lord in the weeks leading up to my prayer retreat. This is similar to how a runner will train for a marathon. If your prayer muscles are not already strengthened you will find a prayer retreat to be a rather heavy lift. So build up to it.

Lastly, do not expect or attempt to produce a mountain peak experience with God. Pray intentionally, yes, but much of the time, be still. Read and meditate upon the Word. Watch the clouds trail across the sky, the hawks circle and the trees bend in the wind. Talk to Him. And let Him decide if and when one of those experiences comes. When they do, like Elijah, you will find the strength to run for many days.

 

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3.8)

          He still walks through His Creation in the cool of the day seeking time with His children. If you go look for Him there, and listen for His voice, you will find Him.