Thanks for all the survey responses. Very helpful. It was interesting how many of you asked for teachings on fasting. I’ll put something together this week.
Today I want to talk about “tiny prayers”. Up to this point, I’ve put a lot of emphasis on shutting away and giving God generous amounts of time. This is absolutely important. But another good habit is to shoot up small prayers throughout the day from morning till night.
I strongly encourage you to develop in all kinds of prayer disciplines. It’s okay to have a favorite way of connecting with God. For me, that would be writing prayers. But we want our relationship to be dynamic. So try all sorts of different ways of connecting with the Lord!
What I’m calling “tiny prayers” are those short sentences we send up to God—usually not out loud because people are around. As soon as I wake up I start tossing them up to heaven to get me going. In the shower, the prayer engines really start warming up and sometimes it turns into a 5-6 minute fervent cry. Tiny prayers happen in my mind while I’m listening to someone. In the car. In the grocery store. When I hear bad news or see something disturbing as I’m driving. Over meals. In conflict. While reading a book. They can happen almost anytime anywhere because they are in my mind and only take 1-2 seconds to say. Here are some of my regulars.
Thank you, Jesus
Lord, I need you
I cry to you
I love you
I worship you
Have mercy
Help
Oh God
My God
Strengthen me
Fill me with love
I’m sorry
Protect me
Touch that person
Help them
Break through
Draw me near
Wash me
Still my soul
Cover me
Guide me
Carry me
Embrace me
Heal me
Anoint me
Drench me
Use me
Send the fire
I could keep going. I’m sure you have a catalogue of your favorites as well. These tiny expressions keep us connected to the Lord. They are part of how we abide in Christ. It’s a tangible way of frequently acknowledging God throughout the course of our day.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. —John 15:4-5
This call to abide perplexed me for many years. What does that mean? Okay, I get that I need to abide in Christ to bear fruit, but what do I actually have to do? It’s basically a moment by moment dependence on the Lord, and tiny prayers help us to stay in that mode of relying on Christ. There’s more to abiding, of course, but tiny prayers are a tool.
Busyness
Reading through the surveys I also noticed that the most common struggle many are having is with busyness and distractions. It’s not just the moms with three kids. Life is busy, and things come at us from every direction. It almost seems like when we set a plan to spend time with God, something crazy happens. A pipe bursts. A crisis happens at work. Or the dog has a mysterious injury and needs to be taken to the vet. It’s always something, right?
Keep fighting for those blocks of being shut away with the Lord. But I challenge you to really take advantage of these moments throughout your day to offer tiny prayers. Even if you are extremely busy and work 70 hours a week or have five kids—or you are an architecture major in college!—there are hundreds of tiny moments in a day that can be turned into tiny prayers. Seize them!
Tiny but powerful
Do you think that a longer prayer is more powerful than a shorter one? Why do we think that? Again, I believe that spending long blocks with God praying, writing, reading the Word, and so on, is so vital. But a short 1-2 second prayer is powerful! Jesus did this often and sometimes prayed tiny prayers out loud as an example to us.
It’s not that different from human relationships. My relationship with my wife includes frequent lengthy conversations or times that we are just with each other. Quality time is essential in deep relationships. But there are also countless little interactions with my wife during the day when I say one thing or we just exchange a look. These are important too! I think that’s what Paul is talking about in this verse:
Pray without ceasing. —1 Thessalonians 5:17
He could be saying that when we are praying about a particular thing we should not give up but keep praying until we get the answer. But I think it probably is more in line with what Oswald Chambers refers to as “unbroken fellowship.” It’s the practice of staying connected to God from morning to night even on our busiest days. It takes some time to really establish this habit. It’s very easy to—even after a really great time with God in the morning—to head into the activities of the day and forget God. I don’t mean forget Him as in we sin against Him but we act like He lives in the prayer closet at our house. We act like He’s not with us. He dwells in us and walks with us! Tiny prayers keep this reality in mind as we live out our day.
Spurgeon
I want to leave you with another resource. One of my favorite writers is Charles Spurgeon who was a pastor in London in the 1800s. He’s been called the “prince of preachers.” His sermons were not only eloquent but had a fierce conviction and punch to them. Spurgeon could have easily relied on his astounding intellect but instead he was driven to depend on God through earnest praying. He was famous for being utterly drenched with the Holy Spirit as he was preaching. Thousands came to Christ through his ministry. All of his sermons are online and can be accessed for free at Spurgeon.org. The website has a search feature I find helpful. So if you’re interested in, say, “prayer” or “revival” or the “sovereignty of God” you can just type in the word or phrase and dozens of sermons will come up. It’s a rich treasure to explore!