Day 1: God Wants To Talk To Me?

Did you know that God wants to talk to you? Not only does He want to talk to you, but He loves it when you talk to Him. Welcome to day one of 7 Day Start. Today we are going to talk about something that's common in almost all forms of spiritual practice, the discipline of prayer. So why does every religion teach prayer as a fundamental discipline? Think about this. Why do 30% of atheists and agnostics even admit to praying at times? It's because we all innately are wired to want to connect with God. Ecclesiastes 3.11 says that God has put eternity in the hearts of every person. And more than that, God loves you and He wants a connection with you. He wants to meet with you in regular conversation. Prayer is an opportunity to encounter God and to talk with God. I love what Father Henry Nouwen says about prayer. He says it is the center of the Christian life. It is the only necessary thing. It is living with God in the here and now. I mean think about it. What an amazing privilege. The God who made the universe desires time with you in regular conversation, just like a friend. However, that does not mean it's always easy. Even experienced believers find prayer challenging at times. So if you are struggling with figuring out how to pray and talk to God, that's totally okay. Did you know that you're in good company? Jesus' friends and followers, they asked Jesus point blank to teach them how to pray. And Jesus wasn't offended by that question at all. In fact, He used it as an opportunity to show what a real conversation with God could look like.

Jesus' friend Matthew remembers the conversation going this way, in Matthew 6, starting in verse 9. This, then, is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. Again, Matthew 6, 9-13. Now, I don't believe Jesus meant that we have to recite these exact words every time. Jesus was much more about relationship than religion. Instead, Jesus was teaching us a simple way to structure our prayer life. Let's break it down together, line by line. I'd like to encourage you to pause the video when we get done talking about each line and try this for yourself. Okay, the first line, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now, hallowed is kind of a weird old word, isn't it? I can't imagine that any of us have said hallowed in our regular life recently. But it just means something above our human categories, holy, separate, different, but in a spiritual sense. God is distinctly and uniquely amazing. So a great way to start every prayer time is just to tell God how awesome He is. Something that I realize is whenever I look to God and realize how big He is, a lot of times my problems or my challenges get smaller. So that's where I like to start too. I tell Him that I love Him. I talk about what He's done for me today or recently. I take a moment and celebrate God's saving work in my life, and you can do that too. You can thank Him for His presence and tell Him how grateful you are just for Him. Before we go on, I know that you may have not grown up in church or around faith or the Bible, so you may be feeling your words are inadequate.

Listen, you don't have to have the right lingo. And I encourage you, God wants your heart, and you can talk to Him just like you talk to a friend. There aren't magical, spiritual words you have to say. Just use this time to share your thoughts and your feelings in your own language. On the screen, I'll give you some thoughts to help you get started. Let's pause the video and try now. Okay, some of you guys didn't pause the video, okay? Hey, listen, this is not about checking off a box. This is about you growing in your prayer life. So if you didn't, take some time to do that. But let's go to this next line. It says, your kingdom come and you will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God has given us the privilege to carry out his plans on earth. I love this passage so much. We get to partner with him to make this world like he designed it to be, good, full of life and hope and love and peace, joy and unity. We get to tell his story of hope and salvation, and you have a part to play. Right here in how Jesus taught us to pray, it's there. The famous German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who bravely stood up against the Nazis at the cost of his life, said this, the essence of prayer is not the effort to make God listen to you, but to devote yourself wholly to him and to make his will your own. God's so powerful. Before we ask God about what we need, it's important to make sure that we want what he wants, that our wants are aligned with his. So let's take a moment. Let's sit quietly. Let's ask God to reveal his will to you and to me. Sometimes God lays things on our hearts, and sometimes he speaks through the Bible, which we'll talk about tomorrow.

Praying to hear from God is a lifelong practice, so don't feel discouraged if it doesn't happen right away. Just remember, prayer is a two-way conversation. What might God be calling you to do? I'll provide some more thoughts on the screen to help you get started. All right, the next line, this is so powerful. Give us this day our daily bread. God promises to provide our needs. Jesus' friends, when they heard this phrase, they would have thought of the story in Exodus of God sending bread from heaven every day to the wandering Israelites when they were in the desert. Now listen, acknowledging our needs to God is important because it is a reminder that he always provides, and it reminds us that we need to trust him and not rely on ourself. So hey, whenever I pray, I journal, and one of the reasons I journal, I like to go back and look at what God has done. I have journals all the way back from when I was a sophomore in high school, and I look back. It just so emboldens me that I can trust him with my daily bread, what I need today. He's got tomorrow. Let's trust him with today. So take a moment. Let's pause the video and thank God for everything he has given us, and let's take time to share our needs. What's weighing heavy on your mind? Now let's go on to the next line. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Can I just be honest? This was not as fun. This isn't a financial debt, although Jesus does use that word picture several times in his stories, but in this case, he's using the thought of debt to illustrate what happens

when we are wronged or when we wrong others. We make a withdrawal of trust when we cause harm or hurt someone else. First and foremost, we need to come to God and to confess where we've wronged him. Listen, confession at its root just means to agree with God. This isn't about shame or guilt or condemnation. This is getting on the same plane with God. So we have missed his standards at times, and we have failed to live according to his ways at times. He knows that. It's not a surprise to him, so let's talk to him about it. This isn't done to add guilt or shame. Again, guilt and shame are lies about who you are as a person, and those things are not how God works. Romans 8.1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's normal to feel conviction about things that you've done, but listen, conviction is a temporary state of awareness of something that's pulling you away from God. Conviction doesn't say anything about who you are as a person. You are still beloved, you are still chosen, you are still a forgiven child of God, regardless of what you do. Listen, our human relationships don't work this way, but our relationship with our Heavenly Father, God in heaven, it does. We are already forgiven, thanks to Jesus, but confessing is a great exercise in humility. Is there something you've done where you need to acknowledge your need for God's forgiveness? Let's take a moment and lay those things,

listen, no matter how hard it might be, no matter how long it's been in your life, listen, Jesus' good will always outweigh our bad. So let's lay those things at his feet. Thank Jesus for his work on the cross that wiped away all of our wrongs. All right, as we keep going through the passage, it says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Now, you've trusted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, now you have the Holy Spirit inside of you. That means that you have the voice of God pointing you towards the right course of action, what he wants you to do, what he wants you to say, where he wants you to go. He will always be there to help you, to counsel you, to guide you. Ask to hear his voice more clearly, that you would make God-honoring choices throughout your day today. But hey, just let me tell you how I look at this, because growing up in student ministry, and I've been pastoring people for a long time, and one of the biggest things that people say is how do I know what's God's voice and what's my own voice? Can I just cut through all of it? Listen, if what you're being prompted to do is not a sin, do it. Do it.

If we wait, we'll walk in paralysis by over-analysis. You are a supernatural being now, having a natural experience, not a natural being having supernatural experiences every once in a while. The Holy Spirit's in you. Ask for promptings, and then obey. Let's take time to practice now. Hey, that's it. I would encourage you to start, listen every day this way. Even if it's as few as five minutes or 10 minutes to help you center your day around God. As you do it more, you'll discover your own rhythms, but for now, this simple structure will help you start your conversations with God. Listen, I've been praying, like I said, I've been journaling for years. I go back to this often. Like, even on the webpage, you'll see I led our whole church in a prayer gathering through this. I still use it, and so listen, God wants to spend time with you, and this is his outline to help us spend more time with him in prayer. I love you. I believe in you. Let's talk to God, because he wants to talk to you.