As I have been thinking over the last few days, it seems to me that we are currently raising up a generation of spiritual pygmies - a generation who think that ten minutes in silence on their knees in prayer is a long time. Where are the prayer warriors of the future? Why is it that so many of the books on preaching speak so little about the critical importance of prayer for understanding and applying a passage? Why is it that we look back on the saints of old who spent two hours a day in prayer and think them strange? Why is it that the more I think about this, the more I realise not only how immature I am, but how few good role models there are?
1 comment:
Because prayer's hard. Prayer's something that requires faith, whereas getting clever arguments and real-life applications out of books is something you can just do. There's no risk in the latter, but the former involves speaking to what is seemingly thin air for two hours, which can make it seem like a waste of time. Prayer also requires you to be creative and come up yourself with what you want to pray about, whereas the rest of sermon creation can be derivative; with enough study you can bodge together a sermon out of bits of other people's texts. And to crown it all off, spending lots of time with big, heavy looking books can make you look academic, whereas getting down on your knees and babbling for two hours - when you could be doing something else - makes you look like a fool. Let's hope that's a fool for christ!
Also, I think a lot of people don't have a decent theology worked out of how prayer works and who it's for. I hope this is different for preachers, but I know I don't yet.
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