Linda McCullough Moore - The Book of Not So Common Prayer: A New Way to Pray, a New Way to Live

THE BOOK OF NOT SO COMMON PRAYER

A NEW WAY TO PRAY, A NEW WAY TO LIVE

Copyright 2014 by Linda McCullough Moore

All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to permissions@umpublishing.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

ISBN 978-1-4267-8739-3

Scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are from the Common English Bible. Copyright 2011 by the Common English Bible. All rights reserved. Used by permission. www.CommonEnglishBible.com.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV TM are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Authorized (King James) Version. Rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crowns patentee, Cambridge University Press.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. TM

Scripture quotations marked WEB are taken from the World English Bible.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Asa

Judd and Katie

Gideon and Joshua

and to their

childrens children

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains

and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord , but the Lord was not in the wind;

and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;

and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire;

and after the fire a still small voice.

1 Kings 19:11-12 (NKJV)

Contents

. One Pilgrims Story

. Why Prayer?

. Praying Time

. Holy Discipline

. The Practices of Prayer

. Writing to God

. Hearing Gods Voice

. Whats Theology Got to Do with It?

. Effectual Prayer

. Zacheus and Tea Parties

A few years ago, something happened to seriously rattle my cagein fact, rattle it so absolutely that the cage door sprang open. I was attending a conference on spiritual disciplines, and I chanced to overhear a comment about a monk who lived centuries ago. That monk: Brother Lawrence.

Ive always been a major fan of Brother Lawrence, who teaches in the book The Practice of the Presence of God that we can be in prayer all the timewhile we are preparing food, teaching a class, or caring for a child. Brother Lawrence writes of a life of menial labor in the kitchen of his monastery, scrubbing pots and baking bread, all the while in fervent prayer and worship, reveling in the grace of God, in deep communion with his Savior, even as he worked. Seventeenth-century multitasking. The notion fit so nicely in my jam-packed, twenty-first-century life.

But that day at the conference, I learned that what gets left out of the story is that this same Brother Lawrence who practiced Gods presence while working also participated in formal, liturgical, corporate prayer eight times a day. Eight times. Every day. Then, he prayed without ceasing. I always wondered why my experience of prayer was not more like the one he described. Its sort of like having been given a cake recipe that left out the part about turning on the oven. (And I always wondered why my cake was more like soup.)

Brother Lawrence had a discipline of prayer. Many times a day. Ah, I think, but that was then; this is now. Brother Lawrence didnt have a carpool, children, e-mails, committees, jobs, and a cell phone. But, he did have a soul and a Savior, just the same as I. And he did have a moment-to-moment relationship with God in Christ that my heart often longs for, an intimacy of constant and soulful connection.

So. The conference ends. I go back home, bring in the mail, wash up the dishes that did not wash themselves while I was away, and I begin to wonder. What if I tried this? What if I tried to pray, not eight, but maybe four times a day? For fifteen minutes, say. I, whose discipline for physical exercise involves two friends coming to my house to drag me physically to the gym. I, who can sit down for a minute to watch the evening news and rise to standing an entire two-hour, twelve-commercial movie later.

Brother Lawrences formal practice of praying several times each day was so very different from anything in my experience. I, who actually believe that prayer might be the most important thing in life, had to admit I prayed when it was convenient. I loved God. I wanted to know him, and I gave prayer about five minutes a day. And even then, I might skip praying if the alarm clock failed or someone called a meeting before 9 a.m.

But it was as though I had been told a precious secret, and I remember the excitement I first felt when I decided I would try it. I would pray four times a day. And from the very start, and through the years that followed, the practice of praying in this way has been transformative. Spending time with God every few hours means God is on my mind; Im conscious of his love as I move through the day; I see things through his eyes. This is no state of perfection. In fact, I am far more aware of my failings and my sin, which means I am continually awestruck at the cost Christ paid to bring us, every one, to a state of grace. This new practice has become a lovely swirl of holy consciousness, repentance, gratitude, and substantive blessing.

In this book I will share my journey, step by step, as I movedsometimes smoothly, sometimes by fits and startsto a new way to pray, a new way to live. This will be a conversation, an exploration of the meaning and the practice of this thing called prayer, and it will be a guidebook, offering nuts-and-bolts, practical help to get from here to there, from longing and dissatisfaction to a daily, hourly practice of heart-blessing, life-changing, not-at-all-common prayer. But, with Gods help, it is prayer that can be common for us all.

We know that it is possible to read a hundred books on prayer and still not pray. But it is my hopeand yes, my oft-prayed prayerthat this book will help you to discover why that is the case and what might be the remedy. I pray this book will not only help you learn about prayer but indeed will also help you come to pray.

We who are disciples of God, in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, share one sneaky suspicion, which is that prayer may be the pathway to the meeting of our needs, needs we may hide welleven from ourselvesbut needs that define who we are and how we live. In our quiet moments, when we stop long enough to realize those vague feelings that something might be missing in our lives, we suspect that something might be God. And yet, we do not pray. Or if we do, we do not pray as we might, as we suspect in our heart of hearts that we are meant to pray. Butand this is one gigantic but God is faithful. It is his pleasure to draw our hearts to him. He does not bless us based upon our efforts, but based entirely on who and what he is. It is God who enables us to conform to his design for us. And, without any doubt, we are designed to pray.