2.18.2025 PBPC Family Bulletin
PBPC Family,
The first chapter in Richard Foster's book Prayer is "Simple Prayer" and, in his words, "is the most common form of prayer in the Bible." In Simple Prayer, we "bring ourselves before God just as we are, warts and all."
This is much easier said than done. There is a temptation that we need to clean ourselves up before we come to God in prayer. We need to pray with the right motives, say the right words, or focus on others more than ourselves because that's what God would want. We bring our idealized selves to God - who we wish we are or who we think God wants us to be.
The problem is that we're not actually bringing our true selves to God - our broken, messy, selfish, complicated selves. We're bringing a fabricated, dressed up version of ourselves. And God doesn't love that fabricated self because it's not real. God loves us - period. God loves us in our sin. God loves us in our brokenness. God loves us in our greed and hatred. God loves all of us. Simple Prayer is simply bringing ourselves and our lives to God.
It's not uncommon for simple prayer to be self-focused - in bringing ourselves to God we will inevitably focus on our wants, desires, pains, frustrations and joys. Simple prayer can seem selfish. Sometimes people avoid simple prayer because of this and try to be more "other-focused" in prayer. But Richard Foster notes,
"...Simple Prayer is necessary, even essential, to the spiritual life. The only way we move beyond 'self-centered prayer' (if indeed we ever do) is by going through it, not by making a detour around it. [...] When we pray, genuinely pray, the real condition of our heart is revealed. This is as it should be. This is when God truly begins to work with us. The adventure is just beginning."
At the end of the chapter, Richard Foster provides a prayer, an entryway into Simple Prayer. I encourage you this week to set aside time to practice Simple Prayer - may this example be a door for you as you bring yourself, just as you are, to God's loving presence.
Dear Jesus, how desperately I need to learn to pray. And yet, when I am honest, I know that I often do not even want to pray. I am distracted! I am stubborn! I am self-centered! In your mercy, Jesus, bring my "want-er" more in line with my "need-er" so that I can come to want what I need. In your name and for your sake, I pray, Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Calvin
"Drifting"
John 5:1-18
Calvin Sodestrom
