When Your Prayers Become About Him
By Justin Hoeppner
Late one evening I was in my office alone, finishing my preparation for an upcoming weekend worship service. I assumed everyone had gone home and I was the last pastor left in the office. I was deep in the process, laboring with my pen in my journal. As I wrote down a finishing thought, I heard a voice call out my name. Honestly, I was terrified.
I looked up from my journal and, to my surprise, there stood one of our church elders. After I recovered from being so startled, I realized this man had one thing on his heart. He had come to church specifically to talk with me. His mission was to encourage me.
He spoke nonstop for about three minutes. I was overwhelmed with the words he shared. I felt so deeply spiritually strengthened that I almost could not take it all in. Then, just as quickly as he showed up at my office door, he ended the conversation and went on his way. What happened next transformed me.
I sat at my desk in the darkened church office and wept. His words had a deep impact on me. All I wanted to do was to cry out with thanksgiving to God. I was so grateful for the encouragement and how it connected with things only God and I knew about my own heart.
Yet, strangely, as I tried to open my mouth and share my words of thanksgiving with God in prayer, I stopped in my tracks. I was thrown into internal conflict. I began to dialogue with myself instead of with God. Yes, God knew exactly what I needed to hear. Yes, the words the man shared were incredibly powerful for me and they strengthened my heart. Yes, I was thankful for how God had nourished my soul with such encouraging words.
But something began to shift inside of me. As I processed what God had done, I began to ponder why God allowed this to happen to me. I wanted to get to the true heart of the transaction that had just taken place.
The gratitude deep within me started to transform my desires. I wanted to pour thanksgiving out to God, but my desire began to shift toward knowing God more deeply through what He had just done.
I was beginning to learn what it means to desire to worship and adore God through adding praise to my prayers. It was a powerful experience.
Going Beyond What’s Natural
It becomes apparent rather quickly when we pray that certain expressions within our prayers flow out of us more naturally than others. In fact, our prayers can become so common, it is possible to pray without even thinking about what we are saying.
We do not have to look too deeply into our prayers to recognize that they often center on our present circumstances. We probably all agree that the content of our prayers should represent the current state of our hearts. It is right to offer prayers of petition and supplication to God that reflect our desires, wants, and needs.
We are reminded in Philippians that we must not hesitate to bring our requests to the Lord, with an underlying emphasis of thanksgiving: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (4:4–7). And 1 Peter 5:7 reminds believers to “cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
We should also pour out thanksgiving for what He has already accomplished. This is right to do in our prayers. God desires this heart response from us. But as we continue to grow in our prayer lives, we begin to recognize that there are forms and expressions we may be missing in our interactions with God. Maturity means seeking to add more expressions—beyond petitions, supplications, and thanksgiving—to our communication with God.
The Culture of Communication
Each of us has a specific way we communicate with God. We have adapted a “culture” within our own prayerful communication to God.
As a pastor, I share in corporate times of prayer regularly. As I listen to prayers throughout each week, I recognize certain forms in my own prayers and in the prayers of others. I am the type of guy who wants to get to the heart of everything. I strive to know the “why” in any situation. So, I listen intently to the prayers of those around me to understand how those individuals see and understand God. It also helps me understand where their prayers are coming from.
In each of our own specific forms of conversational prayer etiquette, we develop strong patterns. These patterns become the defaults in our prayers—and they can also be the limiting factors for our continued maturation as a prayerful people. These patterns can become more about us connecting with ourselves than establishing a deeper connection to God.
The Journey of Prayer
Praying and learning to pray is a journey. When we grow in our faith, our prayers must grow with us. It’s not that there are mature or less mature prayers; it’s more that our prayers should mature with us as we mature in Christ.
As I learn more about God, I should see my communication with Him start to shift and change to reflect what I know. The more I experience God, the more I should talk to God about Himself. My prayers become more about Him and less about me.
In many ways, the content of our prayers is limited to our knowledge and experience with God. As we grow in knowledge and experience, so, too, our prayers should grow in depth of expression. This opens the door to prayers of praise, worship, and adoration.
Praise in Our Prayers
That night in my office, I was filled with deep gratitude for how God had nourished my soul. But I also came to recognize that often my thanksgiving to God was explicitly “me-centered.” For the most part, I was communicating how I was blessed by God—and how that was good for me. But I also recognized, in a fresh way, that every action of God was for the purpose of me knowing Him more. Through every action of God, He discloses more of who He is.
It is essential, then, that we as God’s people take our prayers of thanksgiving for the works of God even further than simply giving thanks. We need to take them into adoration. To adore God is an action that takes our eyes completely off of us and puts them wholly onto who He is. Praise reorders my heart, placing God as first.
I have come to believe that essential to our continued growth within our prayers, we must look deeper into the heart of God’s actions on our behalf. I believe when we begin to understand what God’s heart is, we begin to understand who God is. This leads us into greater knowledge of God that releases us to praise and adore Him in our prayers.
This is the prayer of Paul for the church at Ephesus: “I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength. . .” (Eph. 1:16–19).
When we praise and adore Him, our eyes turn from ourselves and onto Him and who He is. The real power of adding praise into our prayers is that it helps us see God for who He is and not only for what He does.
JUSTIN HOEPPNER is worship pastor at Coast Hills Church in Aliso Viejo, CA.
(C) 2014 Prayer Connect magazine.
