Prayer

I've just finished John Piper's study on missions, entitled "Let the Nations Be Glad!" It is the best DVD study I have ever done and I highly recommend it. I have always struggled with reading Piper because he is so wordy, but the DVD allowed us to watch him speak his words and while it didn't reduce the wordiness, listening to his own inflection and watching his body language made it much more alive and understandable, if that's a word. The weekly homework was short and to the point and really opened God's word to me. The last session was on prayer, and one thing he brought up was the Lord's prayer. We all know it:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. for ever and ever. Amen.

If you notice what Jesus asks for in His prayer, it is:
1. that God's kingdom come (and it will)
2. that God's will be done
3. that He provide our basic necessity (food, and/or His Word)
4. that God deliver us from evil and temptation

It is not for a comfortable and cush life. It is not for that he make our way easy-going, or that he save us from suffering. For Jesus told us that we WILL suffer in this life. (There is a whole other section about suffering that follows which is also really good, but I will save that for another time.)

Piper's main point about prayer is that it is meant to be a wartime walkie-talkie, a direct line to the Father while we are down here fighting for His kingdom on earth, and that prayer malfunctions when we turn it into a domestic intercom (i.e. praying for a comfortable, easy, and pain-free life).  He says, "You cannot know what prayer is for, until you know that life is WAR."