P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

Bite-Sized Prayer

If you were to stop praying today, would it make any difference in your life? Maybe you’ve come to a situation in your life that is so bad or so sad that you just stopped praying. You still believe in prayer, but for a while you have to depend on the prayers of others because you don’t have the heart to pray. I hope you would answer me, “Why, Lonnie, I couldn’t live without prayer any more than I could live without breathing.”

But if we’re not careful, prayer can become such a routine—like breathing--that we don’t even think about what we’re saying. You roll out of bed in the morning and say a prayer just as naturally as you put on your socks. Do you remember putting on your socks this morning? Probably not. You do it every day without thinking. You say grace before you eat, you may bow your head before you take a big test, you kneel down beside your bed at night before you go to sleep. Sometimes you might have a special request to make to God. But even then it can be like mailing in a reply card that promises you prizes in some type of drawing. If you’re lucky, which you know you won’t be, you might win. But if you don’t win, it doesn’t matter. You weren’t expecting anything anyway. While prayer should be a habit, it must not lose its meaning.

Today let’s think about how to make prayer real. Our lives are real, so our prayers must be real, too. They should be about actual, current things, things that are happening to us in our world. And we can use real, every-day conversation. After all, we’re talking to our best friend.

Here’s one way that might make prayer more of a real experience for you: When you talk to God about a problem, think of yourself as being a partner with God in working out a solution. In other words, become personally involved in helping God answer your prayers. Isn’t that an exciting prospect? After all, prayer is more than sending your requests winging their way up to heaven and then going about your day without another thought. Instead, maybe we should send along our prayers like we do registered mail--“Return Requested.”

One time Jesus was talking with His listeners about construction. He said, “If you want to build a tower, you first sit down and decide how much it will cost, to see if you have enough money to finish the job. If you don’t, you might lay the foundation, but you would not be able to finish. Then all who would see it would make fun of you, saying, ‘This person began to build but was not able to finish’” (Luke 14:28-30 NCV).

Jesus knew about construction, because He spent years working with His father in the carpenter shop in Nazareth. If a customer asked Him to build something, Jesus knew the materials, the tools, the design, and He knew what it would cost.

Have you ever had the experience of remodeling a room in your house? Let’s say it was your kitchen. The first thing you did was tell the salesperson what you had in mind. She then probably used a computer to sketch a floor plan according to what you told her you wanted. Then she drew a detailed drawing of the dimensions of all the cupboards, the walls, and the floor, including the plumbing, the electricity, the trim, and all the rest. From this detailed blueprint, a materials list was drawn up and the project was priced. And what a price it was! You’re probably still reeling from the shock. But you needed to know before you started the job exactly what it would cost.

When you pray and bring a request to the Lord, it might be a good idea to think about what it will cost you—in other words, what you might need to do to be a part of the solution. This would keep your prayers from becoming vague and pointless. It would also help you to not be selfish. God is great and powerful, all wise and all knowing. He can answer your prayers without your help. But he wants to involve you—even more, He needs to involve you more often than not. He needs you to be His hands, His feet, and His heart.

Here’s where the bite-sized pieces come in. Has a jokester ever asked you: How does one eat an elephant? The answer is, of course, One bite at a time! My faith must be big enough and bold enough to ask God for big things, even great things. But I have to employ bite-sized faith—a faith that can be applied one piece at a time.

My tendency is to pray in broad brush strokes and not think about the fine details that God may want to bring together to accomplish His will. But it’s the bite-size prayer that’s the key to getting the answer. Think globally, but pray specifically.

It’s one thing to pray for peace in the world, but it’s another thing to be kind and cooperative with my wife so that there’ll be peace in my home. It’s one thing to ask the Lord to keep me safe while I’m driving across the city, but it’s another thing for me to drive carefully and politely on my own side of the road. It’s one thing to ask the Lord to bless my children, but it’s another thing to find ways where I can encourage or comfort them.

It’s noble to pray for the world, but your world is your family and friends. Broad strokes are nice in the background, but it’s the detail that completes the picture.

The next time you ask God to “bless” something, whether it’s your family, your church, or some far-off mission field, take a few minutes and consider how God might do that. Will He use a magic wand? Will He use thunder and lightening? Will He use smoke and mirrors? Or does He want to use you?

One day Jesus said to His disciples, “There are a great many people to harvest, but there are only a few workers. So pray to God, who owns the harvest, that he will send more workers to help gather his harvest” (Luke 10:2 NCV). Here is Jesus, who could make the stones talk if need be, who could send 10,000 angels, who could do all the work Himself--instead He’s asking His disciples to pray for more workers. It wouldn’t mean very much for the disciples to pray this harvest prayer unless they themselves were willing to be one of the workers.

A little girl and her family were having worship one evening. One of the things they prayed about was a poor woman in the church. The little girl’s daddy prayed that God would remember the poor woman and provide for her needs. When the prayer was over, the little girl said, “Daddy, we have a lot of food. Why don’t you answer that prayer yourself?”

Although God works in mysterious ways, His ways usually include people, and that person might as well be you or me.

One day Joni Earickson Tada, the woman whose life has been a blessing and an inspiration to millions around the world, was being interviewed on a Christian radio program. Something she said stuck with me. She said that, before she and her husband go to visit friends, they offer a prayer that God will give them the words to speak so that they in turn will be able to bless and encourage others.

You might want to try doing the same thing. It’s a great way of making prayer real and personal.

Bite-sized or broad brush strokes? How do you usually pray? Do you find yourself asking God to "take care of everything"? He can and does, of course. But sometimes the answers to your prayers may be much nearer home than you think.

World peace will begin with your being kind at home. Everyone’s worst pet peeve is probably dinnertime telephone calls from telephone solicitors—telemarketers, we call them. Many people will simply hang up or be less than polite. A friend told me that sometimes he will deliberately enter into conversations with these unwelcome callers. He’s found out that often they’re young people trying to earn their way through college. One young woman confided that she makes 400 calls a day! My friend confessed, "When I hung up the phone after talking with that girl, my heart was touched, and I didn’t feel so offended when I realized that the caller was a person like the rest of us just trying to make a living.”

May I make a suggestion? The next time the phone rings during suppertime, before answering, you might consider saying a little prayer. It could go something like this: “Lord, help me to be kind.”

At the beginning of the program I mentioned that many of us are praying for loved ones or friends who have wandered away from the Lord. Instead of just praying that God will bring them back to Him, try to imagine how He might do that and imagine how He might need your help to answer your prayer. What changes may God need to bring into your life that will make it easier for your loved one to answer Jesus’ knock on their heart’s door. This is what I mean when I suggest that we cut your prayers into bit-sized pieces. The result will be that, as Jesus calls your loved one to come back into the fold, your own life will be changed as well.