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When God is Silent-Faith, Hope, & Prayer

It is impossible to talk about prayer without also talking about faith and doubt. But how much faith is enough?

It is impossible to talk about prayer without also talking about faith and doubt. The two are bound up with prayer in Scripture. Faith and doubt also represent the polar dimensions of our experience when it comes to prayer. One side is reflected in Jesus’ promise when the disciples marveled that He had caused a fig tree to wither with only a few words. Jesus told them to have faith in God. “Truly…

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When God is Silent-Prayers Without Words

Some years ago, a friend admitted to me that she couldn’t pray. “I don’t know why,” she said. “But it’s like choking.” She wrote to me recently and said that she still struggles. “I have read so much on prayer, and it still sticks in my throat and comes out halting and inadequate.” She is not alone. Some of the godliest people have found themselves at a loss for words in the presence of…

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When God is Silent: Jesus on Prayer

Everyone learns to talk by imitation. Most people learn to pray the same way. They hear the prayers of others and copy them. Jesus’s disciples learned how to pray from Jesus.

Everyone learns to talk by imitation. Most people learn to pray the same way. They hear the prayers of others and copy them. Jesus’s disciples learned how to pray from Jesus. His model prayer, usually referred to as the Lord’s Prayer, is a prayer that we can pray for ourselves, but it is also a kind of template. The Lord’s Prayer provides us with a foundational vocabulary for praying. The church…

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The Christmas Story

A few years ago, my wife Jane and I visited a church on Christmas Eve. It was one of those shopping mall churches–literally. The church building was a converted shopping center. Not only that, but the building in which the congregation worshipped had formerly been a store that specialized in Christmas decorations. During the service, the pastor invited the children to come on stage and listen as…

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When God is Silent: Staying Focused During Prayer

Many things can get in the way of praying. But one of the most common obstacles is boredom. Prayer can sometimes seem tedious. Our prayers often sound the same. They begin and end the same way. They seem to be composed of the same requests uttered day after day in the same words. We don’t necessarily need to be troubled by the fact that we get bored when we pray. Prayer is an interchange, not a…

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When God is Silent: Praying in the Words of Another

Which kind of praying is better, memorized prayers, written prayers, or extemporaneous prayers that we make up in the moment?

The first prayer that I remember praying was one I learned. It was a bedtime prayer. I don’t recall whether I learned it from my mother or someone else. It went like this: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. To be honest, this prayer disturbed me. Up to that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could…

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Managing Our Angry Prayers

Sometimes when we pray, we are angry with other people. On other occasions, we pray because we are angry with God. How should we manage our angry prayers?

Sometimes when we pray, we are angry with other people. On other occasions, we pray because we are angry with God. When Jonah prayed, it was both. After delivering what may be the shortest and most successful sermon in preaching history, Jonah prayed an angry prayer in which he took God to task for his mercy and then begged for death.   You might think that Jonah would be happy. Instead, the…

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When God is Silent-The Art of Praying for Others

Do a search on books about intercessory prayer on the Internet, and the overall impression you get is that our concerns in this area are primarily concerns of focus and method. Intercession isn't exactly rocket science but that make it easy.

When I was a pastor, one of my responsibilities was to pray for the congregation. I usually began every morning in my “praying chair” with the church directory open on my lap. I would look at the pictures and pray for each person by name. It was easy, as long as I was praying in generalities. It was harder when I tried to pray in specifics. Besides asking God to give them a good day, keep them…

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When God is Silent-Asking and Getting What You Want . . . or Not

In one of his parables, Jesus compares prayer to someone who asks a neighbor to loan him three loaves of bread when an unexpected visitor shows up at midnight (Luke 11:5–8). In the scenario that Jesus describes, the neighbor is unwilling at first. “Don’t bother me,” the neighbor says. “The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.” What is…

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When God is Silent-Awkward Conversation

Whatever prayer may be, it is not an ordinary conversation. It is a conversation where we do the majority of the talking.

Some conversations are just hard: telling someone about the loss of a loved one; talking to the kids about the facts of life; informing an employee that their contract will not be renewed; making small talk with a person whom you have virtually nothing in common. But few conversations are quite as challenging as trying to talk with someone who seems to have nothing to say. I say this to make a…

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Do We Really Need Another Book on Prayer?

As I was writing my most recent book, When God is Silent, I had to ask myself a question. Do we really need another book on prayer? C. S. Lewis once observed that he had never come across a book on prayer that was of any use to him. He said that he had seen many books of prayers, but when it came to books about prayer, the writers usually made the wrong assumptions about the reader. I have often…

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Other Words: Four More Cries from the Cross

The last word my mother ever spoke to me was “No.” She spoke it repeatedly as she lay in a hospital bed. Her cry was a spontaneous act of resistance, an expression of outrage against the impending dissolution of death. The last thing my father said to me was, “I love you.” He, too, was in a hospital bed, and his words were also a reflex of sorts. Despite his discomfort, it was an automatic…

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Three Prayers from the Cross

Some have called Jesus' seven statements from the cross his last words. Among these seven sayings are three prayers. Jesus' three prayers from the cross help us to place the suffering of Christ in a larger context.

Some have called Jesus’ seven statements from the cross his “last words.” The label is striking but somewhat misleading. They are not individual “words” but a collection of sentences or phrases. Neither are they technically the last words of Jesus but merely the last things he said before his death and resurrection. It turns out that Jesus still had much to say. After the resurrection, he showed…

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Pass Me Not

A few thoughts on spiritual jealousy, revival, whimsical way God works through His Spirit.

Several years ago, at the Bible college where I taught, news reached the campus that a revival had broken out among the students of another school. It was much like the recent event at Asbury University, though on a smaller scale. The stories we heard were similar. Students knelt and wept at the front of the chapel as they asked God to forgive their sins. There was singing and confessing. Some…

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People of Prayer-Today in the Word Interview

Jamie Janosz, managing editor for Today in the Word, interviewed me about this month's devotionals entitled "People of Prayer."

I am a little late with this. I should have posted it January 1. I am this month’s devotional writer for Today in the Word and the topic is People of Prayer. You can watch the interview above by my friend and colleague Jamie Janosz, who is Today in the Word’s managing editor. If you would like to read the devotions, you can find them here. They are short, so if you want to catch up, it should be…

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A Season of Ghosts: Christmas, Nostalgia, & "The Weight of Glory"

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the first spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrooge is the ghost of Christmas past. Scrooge notes the spirit’s small stature and asks, “Long Past?” “No. Your past,” the ghost replies. Dickens is on to something here because t

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the first spirit to visit Ebenezer Scrooge is the ghost of Christmas past. Scrooge notes the spirit’s small stature and asks, “Long Past?” “No. Your past,” the ghost replies. Dickens is on to something here because this spirit often visits us at this time of year. The season of Advent, by its nature, implies a forward trajectory. It celebrates humanity’s…

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Eternity Shut in a Span

Eternity Shut in a Span

December is the season when tinsel-haloed angels draped in bedsheets announce the birth of Christ to bathrobe-clad shepherds on the church stage. There is a kind of charm in the way we tell the nativity story that might fool people into thinking that it is merely a rustic folktale. But the Bible’s account of the birth of Christ is not a children’s story. It is a record of history and an act of…