Part 3 :: Communicating with our God & Chapter 13:: Prayer is Our Means of Conversing with God

I hope you're doing great! Kendra is currently enjoying Passion 2012. You can click this link to join her live via stream if you'd like!

As we head into the last section of our book, Wendy makes this statement, "Head knowledge is of no value if it is not connected to a personal relationship with Him and relationship with God demands communication with him." Amen! In a similar way, my husband (or any sports-loving guy) knows a lot about different athletes and teams, but he doesn't know them personally. They wouldn't know him from John Doe on a crowded bus, though he might thinks he "knows" them.

That heads us into Chapter 13, where we start with prayer. Wendy gives the real cruz for the "why" of prayer,

"You and I are in Christ and commanded to abide with Christ. Christ is the head and we are the body... We have God Almighty living in us as the Spirit and we are called to reflect this reality and take advantage of it in the form of prayer... Sometimes it will be a gushing river... Sometimes it will be a quiet stream... We all know what it is like to have something on our mind all day. Well, God is to be on our mind continually. We are called to constantly acknowledge and take advantage of the supernatural union we have with God Almighty. 

Question 1: Describe a time when you had something on your mind all day. What would it be like to have God on your mind continually?
Question 2: Do you constantly acknowledge and take advantage of the supernatural union we have with God Almighty? If not, how can you start doing so? 

The model that Jesus gave us the model for prayer in Matthew 6. Wendy walks us through this passage. It's easy for me to read through something like this and  think, that was nice. I've read that before. In one ear and out the other. So...

Question 3: Please spend some time summarize each section of this prayer with 1 sentence (find one in Wendy's writing or create your own). 

i.e. Hallowed: Christ teaches us to open our prayers to the Father with a cry for the holiness of God's name so that everything for which his name stands will be set apart and esteemed as special and worthy. 

At the end of the chapter, Wendy points us to Luke 18:1-8 and mentions that this passage invites us to nag God in prayer. In general, I NEVER want my name to be associated with the word "nag", except in this case. Here are her remarks after the parable and WHY God invites us to nag Him...

In summary, Wendy shares this...

How blessed are we to have a model for corresponding with God?! 

Question 4: In what ways has this chapter challenged your thoughts about prayer? 

Question 5: In what ways do you look forward to changing how you converse with God in prayer? How do you think this will affect your relationship with Him?

Joel and I are about to start reading through a new marriage book called, "Real Marriage", put out by Mark Driscoll. I anticipate that we'll both learn a lot about biblical marriage. We all know reading a book is one thing, but the relationship that actually results is what really matters. I pray that real relationship change will result with each one of us in our relationship God as we finish off "Practical Theology" together!