Steven James - A Heart Exposed: Talking to God with Nothing to Hide

A Heart Exposed A Heart Exposed Talking to God with Nothing to Hide
Steven James
2009 by Steven James Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 495166287
www.revellbooks.com E-book edition created 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. ISBN 978-1-4412-1089-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from GODS WORD, a copyrighted work of Gods Word to the Nations.

Quotations are used by permission. Copyright 1995 by Gods Word to the Nations. All rights reserved. Scripture marked NIV is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.

Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com Scripture marked NLT is taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. The prayer is based on a prayer in Never the Same by Steven James (Youth Specialties, 2005), page 41.

The prayer is based on a prayer in Praying from the Gut (Standard Publishing), page 115. The prayer is based on a prayer in Never the Same by Steven James (Youth Specialties, 2005), pages 14243. For Jacob, Caleb, and Dhanraj,
three men who serve the king
Thanks to
Liesl Huhn, Trinity Huhn, Pam Johnson, Dr. Mike Sweeney, Mark Collins, Bill Jolley, David Lehman, Pamela Harty, Kristin Kornoelje, and Jennifer Leep. Introduction I think prayer is the most profound, daring, authentic, mysterious communication available to the human heart, but even though I know how important prayer is, I dont feel particularly qualified to teach people how to do it. Almost always my prayers tend to do one of three things: (1) tell God hes great, (2) ask him for stuff, (3) tell him Im sorry.

One day I realized that when I talk to my friends, I do a lot more than compliment them, ask for things, and apologize. In fact, if thats all I did, it would be a pretty shallow friendship. Instead, we talk about whats on our minds, our dreams and problems, our hobbies and struggles. We argue, we fight, we celebrate. Sometimes we laugh or complain or remember good times together. And sometimes we dont talk at all, we just hang out.

God offers me this kind of deep friendship, but I rarely take him up on his offer. In contrast to my limited prayer vocabulary, the prayers of the people in Scripture contain everything from desperate cries for mercy to powerful stories of deliverance to outbursts of praise to incisive observations about the injustices of life. The Psalms are full of complaints, moments of amazement, and whispered pleas that throb with grief and pain and raw, human need. In this ancient collection of prayers, we find imagery, theology, intimacy, fear, worry, love, and wonder, and also broken hearts, broken dreams, and broken livesand healed ones too. Joy. Glory. Terror. Terror.

And almost always, the prayers go deeper than Youre awesome, God, Please help me, God, or Im sorry, God. The prayers in the Bible strike me as being deep and real, lofty and glorious, painful and frolickingjust like I want my prayers to be. And just like I want my friendship with God to be too. As Ive worked on this book, Ive found that often my most genuine, heartfelt prayers are a little messy, a little rough around the edges, and sometimes a little awkward, because thats what my life is like and thats what God asks me to bring him. Polished, eloquent, impressive prayers have a tendency to become performances. Real prayer is more concerned with honesty, pain, and amazement than getting all the words just right.

So as we pray, I think we need to be willing to reveal our vulnerabilities and our passions, our sorrow and our joy, our shameful secrets and pet temptations, and our most intimate desires and dreams. Im hoping this book will help you do that. I should mention that I believe written prayers have just as vital a place in our lives as extemporaneous, or spontaneous, prayers do. After all, if our ancestors hadnt written down their prayers we wouldnt have the greatest collection of prayers in the worldthe book of Psalms. Also, most of our contemporary worship and praise songs are prayers that have been set to music. Each one is carefully written and crafted by songwriters and musicians to lead us into closer communion with God.

While its true that some churches improvise their worship lyrics, I think its safe to say that most do not. So heres my question to those who shy away from written prayers: why shouldnt the prayers we speak be as carefully prepared as the ones we sing? It might be helpful to know why I didnt include section headings (such as Prayers of Thanks, Prayers of Confession, Prayers of Praise, etc.) or titles for the prayers. I left them out for four reasons:
1. Nearly all other prayer books Ive looked at do that, so it seemed too formulaic to me. 2. When I experimented with including them and gave copies of the book to some friends to read, they told me that titling the prayers was distracting and sometimes confusing.

After looking over the prayers, I agreed with them. 3. I never label the prayers I spontaneously offer to God, and it felt contrived to do so on the page. 4. Many of the prayers could have easily fit into more than one category, and placing them in one section rather than another limited their meaning. Categorizing them boxed them in, so to speak.

But one of my reasons for writing this book was to help myself, and you, step out of our typical cookie-cutter conversations with God, instead of remaining locked in them. Im sure therell be some prayers in this book that you just dont connect with, but Im hoping that most of the time youll find the prayers expressing something real in your life. As I write this, Im saying a prayer of my own: first, that the words on these pages would not simply form a book but would open a space for you to encounter more of Gods presence. And second, that the words wouldnt get in the way of the silences between themthat as you pray, youll be able to hear the God of the universe whispering peace to you as you offer him your bare-naked heart. Steven James this moment is all that you ask of me. i can either give it to you, or turn it into a fist and try to keep it to myself.
and fail.
Jesus, your prayers were drenched with sweat and blood,
and throbbed with glory and pain.

My prayers are so often soaked in perfume, decorated with nothing more than stock phrases and catchy clichs carefully varnished pieces of furniture
for you to admire.
Unpeel my pretenses, masks, and faades, and stare beneath my whitewashed life. Shake off the rust, and the dust, and the tired repetition.
Here, now, Jesus, I will break the trend, I will speak prayers raw with the realities of life, tender with the realization of grace; prayers with flesh and blood,