"conscious". Just an observance but having ponder this thread something keeps coming back up ... Is this possibly too much self introspection? Too much analysis? It is a true question and I just wonder if this could end up being something of a detriment where by somewhere in the future all these considerations of how and what particular phraseology is being used is something that is prefacing our speech before it escapes the lips.
Having said that it is also a familiar difficulty in that public praying can be difficult enough. Can well recall being in bible studies early on and as the rounds of prayer make their way towards 'my turn' a certain anxiety, that fumbling and fore thinking can be such a distraction that one cannot even consider the prayers being spoken while introspecting what will be said when it reaches your turn in the circle. To be frank am not very fond now of this sort of 'style' of praying, it was almost always very formulaic and unfortunately forced. In the minds eye to be in this situation now would likely pass if there was no true, honest and real expression to be made. I am not speaking anything at all about motivation or intention just this sort of ... I want to say manipulation that subtly whispers "you must say [i]something[/i], it's [i]your turn[/i]".
It is an interesting thought to pursue in knowing how conscious we should be of others when we pray. If we are totally unconscious of them it is likely that our langauge, if overheard, would be quite incomprehensible. We would refer to thoughts and ideas of which the over-hearers would have no knowledge.
Would hope if anything that this could still be true and yet be "on the fly" so to speak. Chris elsewhere touched on this with a comment from Oswald Chambers;
[i]Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life the implicit is never conscious, if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.[/i]
Again, 'conscious' ... but not [i]too[/i] conscious perhaps?
It does raise another question about prayer in general, the usage of public praying primarily in the New Testament. Certainly they are there maybe I am just wondering at the contrast and the seemingly sparse instances by way of comparison from scripture and that which permeates this modern era. It is not to make a statement at all, here, just a wonder and a thinking out loud. There is a word that comes out of all of this ... [i]earnestness[/i].
While I am at it might as well bring out another thing that can cause the spirit to recoil... and carefully here, I recognize the nervousness that I believe often accompanies this but it is something that was brought up here earlier; The punctuating ever line with "Father God" or the like. There is something that inwardly is thinking yes, you have His ear no need to keep repeating it ... now of course this could be my trouble just as well ...
Think this states many things ... One is just the reach that the resources here have. This lone message had such a tremendous effect on myself that though not entirely by itself it was a great part of finishing what was happening in the circumstances surrounding the times ... That's a long sentence but what I mean is that it had sat percolating for a number of weeks, months likely and would return to it on occasion because David Wilkerson was speaking of something that I was very much in, [i]anguish[/i]. During that same time had also been struck quite remarkably with a great deal of Art Katz and his emphasis on stripping away at things that are just plainly [i]false[/i]. Not in the realm of 'false doctrine' but false expression, false spiritual understanding, the 'glib and plastic' things that are part and parcel of the church. That are accepted as the norm. The show of it all. "Authenticity", [i]authentic[/i], these words began to grip and cry out for true expression. Beyond emotions and out from [i]the bowels[/i], the gut, guttural things ... [i]anguish[/i]. What it amounted to was a realization that I could no longer go on ... [i]faking it[/i]. As much as I despised the idea that it could be true, there it was, there i was being caught up in the mechanics of it all, half aware at times and fully aware at others. Something had to give. It ended up being a true turning point.
Where it really hit was before New Years a number of years ago now. Had all these things going on and a great desire to really truly [i]pray[/i] and the church had decided to hold a prayer meeting throughout the evening (New Years eve)and into the new year. So armed with this burden and given a specific 'time slot' took off to the meeting and once more brought up Wilkersons "anguish" into the hearing on the way. Again the now forever etched cry of his heart "[i]Lord, .... if You don't help me ...[/i]". It was the unspoken that just torn away at all the pretense, the intimation and inflection way beyond the words, here this grisly spiritual man exclaiming from his gut. It had me again in tears. Upon arriving at the meeting was handed a sheet with specific prayer requests and ... my spirit just sank. I can't even recall what they were for, seemingly insignificant things, a sort of laundry list of requests. And I thought, [i]this[/i]? this is what we are going to be praying about? Let me state one thing emphatically, it was not the people, it was [i]me[/i]. I loved them but I did not understand them and couldn't just ... go through the motions. Worse of all, I ended up capitulating to mouthing the words with a great struggle of spirit ... I wanted to cry and I wanted to run. It was but three of us and one was a dear lady that I had wept with at the front of the church on one occasion, neither of us saying a word, just both strangely overcome with tears no telling how long we had been there when we looked up and saw no one else around, without a word we hugged and went our way. The other lady there must have picked up on my distress and we went aside and she prayed something 'for' me I guess but there was still this dull ... nothing about it. Not her, no ... something just depressing about it all. After we were 'done' reading through our 'list' and that is really all we were doing even if it had the idea of praying attached to it and still with this great disturbance inwardly ... tried to go on with the game plan I had arrived with, to stay back in one of the pews and pray silently all through the night. But I couldn't. I just had to get out of there, the whole atmosphere was just ruined and I blamed no one but myself for having all these great expectations and for feeling so contrary to the effort, so out of place, so odd, so peculiar. After that night, never again returned back to that church. It is still difficult to speak of this and have done so here around the time this all came to pass. So many things that are difficult to explain. Good people, they love the Lord. The church seems still fairly well taken with most of the modern constructs, programs ... the Purpose Driven ... I was baptized there. At the time it was the pre-printed course of the year type preaching that follows a set precept, you get the handout with the 'bulletin points' likely taken from one of the resources made easier for the busy pastor ... Actually had a brother here point out to me this very thing around the time and was pretty well broken to see that this was indeed the case. The problem is in the criticism that all this must sound like. We have an plenty of fodder here discussing these things. The other difficulty is in recognizing the trap of how this all can be self serving, 'what's in it for me?' or the other usual cry "I am not being fed here". All these things had been going on simultaneously to where even to sit through a service was to pray that the Holy Spirit would jostle out of the complacency and turn the preaching away from the 'set' to something truly spontaneous ... to something [i]guttural[/i], something truly real and effectual, something that would cause a [i]change[/i] to the hearers in their life outside the doors, that day and forever. It hurts to even express this.
Sorry for the digression, there may yet be something of a tie in here though... What manner and possibility is there that much public praying is actually causing a great deal of the very problems we see in the present day church? Everything from an easy belieivism to a skirting of the painful spiritual lessons that need to be cut into the heart of professing believers. That by glossing over the difficult aspects with nice sounding, public praying it is acting as a contagion to preaching, to worship as it is now known as 'music' and singing, entertainment for the Christian rather than real guttural expressions to the Lord. Am in a rather deserted place these days so take it all with the right understanding that can be had.
