Incline Your Ear, Oh Lord

Does God want us to make sure our prayers are theologically buttoned up or does he just want us to pour out our heart, our emotions to him no matter how messy they are.

Barbara Rainey says God wants both at the end of the day.

I really only want one thing I want to please God is so I know he's okay with me saying what I really feel can choose him. She is his way. He's training his everything because I know he knows what he's doing and I know that if I charged it would not turn out really this is family life today. Our hosts are Damon and Wilson and Bob Lapine can find us online@familylifetoday.com Jesus taught us as his disciples how to pray. He also says come to me when you are weary and heavy like and I'll give you rest. Barbara Rainey joins us today to talk about prayer to family life today. Thanks for joining us to tell you guys a story is die and time above so and then before I tell the story.

Let me is welcome back to the studio with us again. Bob Delaney was joining us on family life today welcome.

We've already mentioned the trees here without her husband, which is an unusual circumstance.

But whatever great conversation about prayer, which is that the story I wanted to tell you what I was in high school, the church I went to high school was a traditional mainline church where on Sunday of the worship service there would be prayers that would be read out of the bulletin. I remember thinking is anybody even paying attention. Any this to mouthing words. I mean I was. I was just reading these prayers. I wouldn't pay much attention to them didn't know what some of the words meant and and so when I wrote a paper for my confirmation class in church. This is I'm in high school I write this paper and I say it in Matthew six it says that words our prayers are supposed to not just be meaningless babble. It's supposed to be from our heart, and I kinda came away with this view that prayer that is not in the moment and spontaneous is somehow not not the way you're supposed to pray and I thought the same thing I did just your supposed to just pray in from the moment and anything that you're reading out of a book or anything that's just the way the pagans do it so now flash forward but 20 years. I'm in New York City for the first time in my life and I'm touring New York City and I walk into the St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, Sunday night the mass was not happening. But you know St. Patrick's is open all the time people are walking in the sea at the architecture of the whole thing that had services there that morning and there was a bulletin with all of these printed prayers and I picked it up, but I scoffing Willie started looking through this I go see.

Let's see what what these prayers and are all about, and I opened up to a prayer of confession and was a traditional prayer of confession that used in Catholic Church and Anglican church. It's one that says Lord, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed. We have sinned with things we've done with things we left undone were unworthy.

I'm reading this and I go my prayers of confession are pretty pretty mild compared to what this is. I mean this is this is really Leon may bear differently than I do when I just am spontaneous God, Lord, I blew it.

Sorry right and all of a sudden I realized people who spend time thoughtfully pondering what it is they want to say to God, if you got invited to go to the White House to speak to the president and they said no.

You might want to spend a little time thinking about what you want to say to him while you're in the Oval Office, you'd probably spend a little time, maybe even shut out some notes rather than just well just say whatever comes to mind in the moment right and end the reason I bring all of this up is because of the new book Barbara that you've written called my heart ever.

His collection of 40 prayers that reminded me when I first saw it the Valley of vision prayer book that there is no Puritan room book which I know you've used was there a point in your life where you started to realize that pre-printed prayers and people spending time in thinking about how to craft a prayer that that could be a spiritually enriching activity you have an experienced it's like yours, but I do remember him getting a copy of the Valley of vision prayer so I know. Previous to that. Actually I started doing some digging into the life of Susanna Wesley and she wrote some prayers and I got her book someone printed a copy of that book was probably in the 90s and I remember reading it and I loved her prayers. I love some of the words she used in some of the concepts. She is the word condescend, which was not aware that we normally use much, but she wrote about how amazing it was that God would condescend to come down to our level and I remember that phrase stuck with me and it gave me a completely different view on what God did for us just by reading her words and they were old words. Of course, because they lived hundreds of years ago.

So that was my first introduction to outside mainline church wrapping when I was a kid like you.

That was my first introduction in the Valley of vision was another. When I read that thing over and over again. Sons were kind of like primers, they sort of stirred that desire in my heart. I think over the years, before I actually started doing it myself. There is something about other people giving thought and attention and giving us words and language that wouldn't come to us on our own that causes us to go to.

Yes, that's how I felt. That's what I've been thinking that's what I'm going through that can deepen our engagement with God as we go to him in prayer only that, but I think it can help teach us how to pray about that intimacy looks like in the honesty of what that can look like and then even how we come back to praise and trust in prayer to God about it. Many say this Barbara.

I just want listeners to know that you have marked my life dramatically. By your modeling what a woman is a woman who walks with God who follows God, who yearns to really grow with him to watch your marriage has been so inspiring and really made an impact on myself and on Sunday, and I think your thoughtful with your words where I'm 100.

I don't necessarily hold my words back and he just kind of flow out and I don't even know what they're saying that your thoughtful and when you say something your words are weighty and have a lot of meaning and way to them. And I think that your book is like that as well. Thoughtful, beautiful.

I think when people prayed me in Greenpeace. I think that they'll find that their heart resonates with your heart in your yearnings and your longings. You wrote a prayer on marriage to at least read part of that now this was a fun one to write because marriage has been for me.

Wonderful.

It's a gift from God that it's been far more challenging and complicated than ever dreamed it would be which most people may not assume the literally true you are. It's absolutely true. So I wrote this about marriage, why God did you create marriage. My daughter asked and I remember the day she texted me that are called and asked me that because she was struggling to so I started with her quote why God did you create marriage she asked and sometimes I wonder to we all thought happily ever after and too often it is not your idea was conceived before Adam and Eve three and one imagined a plan to show your oneness to free will creatures formed by you to gather, you declared to us displaying us on earth that was our mission to let people see Jesus in us that Jerry has been harder than a friend imagined on that happy. I do day there were times Lord you remember when I question your design wondered how we'd ever get past the present crisis, but by not quitting. We always arrived on the other side with new unseen strengths. Endurance built into us wearing more love, appreciation, respect, and before our foundation anchored more securely.

Our relationship better than ever. I ended by saying this marriage Savior no matter what trials Linehan I want to be found. Believing you and your every word I want my marriage to be a beacon of light calling others to join us till death do us part way all those who see our committed union be encouraged with great hope, to believe in you because nothing is impossible for you, even marriage. Amen we can read that every day asking you to so well written. As I said before, when I read it I felt like I was in your prayer life and also in my prayer life and I was the thing was so authentic, so honest on Micah felt the same things, but let me ask you this, even as we said before, it in some ways your journals much like reading a Psalm in the Psalms.

One of the questions I have an arena right now which is interesting just to my own life. I read Psalm 10 the other day and David did what he often does.

He starts with a sort of a lament or complain, and Indians was believe I hear something he says while Lord you stand far away.

Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble. I gotta be honest the been written one a day and so as I started the solemn, like there is wine and again is only some every single cell in 153 should do if I my really dude you get it again at the end of this when he's like, oh Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted. You will strengthen their heart you will incline your ear and I'm like wow what a journey from you. Yeah well you know we've all felt that them by the end of the song which is 18 verses later, he has this belief.

I want to ask you this because when I read it. Even yesterday, my David wrote to Solomon one setting or is this journey over days or weeks or months. Same thing for you as you walk through some valleys and some questions were the songs written in one sitting, or this is that belief and trust for you to take time you visit sometimes not come at the end of the writing of a song.

I think the answer is both yeah I think some of them it was just very easy to write them all in one setting. I didn't necessarily feel like God was near. When I finished writing them feel any different at the end of it wasn't about changing my circumstances or feeling a different way that it was a really is really a faith exercise.

This is how I feel that this is what I know is true about you. I want you know how I feel but I'm going to choose. This energy is to believe in you.

No matter what because at the end of the day. I really only want one thing I want to please God. That's all it is so I know he's okay with me saying what I really feel fit in the end I'm going to choose him to choose his way. He is turning his everything because I know he knows what he's doing and I know that if I charged it would not turn out right. What I would mess things up and I'm content to let him have the final word, and so some of the prayers were really quick at that.

Some of them I had kind of think through and decide what I really think about this so that they missed they were different, you find that it's healing to write you about your center. Earlier, when you would see somebody read a prayer is that of spontaneously say go.

It's not as is meaningful and yet many times the opposite. You take the time to send it right this out like bugs that earlier. The prayer of confession when I've listed my sins on a piece of paper your grip to it's like oh my goodness look of this is horrible, rather than just flippantly like you said, I don't do so as you wrote those down and even I think even the solace they want on this journey that they might not have gone on in less they said that I would write this out and you experience SRAM is a journey of healing a great yeah absolutely I did and I think there's something about putting it on paper makes it concrete went up here in the brain and I'm just talking to God as I go I get distracted.

I see things mean I just lose my train of thought that when I was writing these out. I had to really evaluate what do I feel what do I know is true about God.

How does all this reconcile.

So it was very healing and hope to do well to say this will quickly service apprentices.

I hope that people who did get the book and read it will use it in that way you will underline that you also write out in the margins.

Oh I feel this way today. I really don't feel that your near God. I don't know what to do in the situation, but I'm going to choose to trust you so I wanted to be interactive and maybe even instructive to try it yourself because it really did it just made such a difference in my relationship with God. I'm guessing that once you turned in these 40 prayers to the publisher and said here's my book, you've continued the discipline.

It's not as much of a discipline as it was when I was trying to meet a deadline. However however I'd I have continued to write some and have enjoyed the process so yeah I'm still doing it and want to do more kind of in a little bit of a low right now. Maybe I should write a book of prayers from mediation them to suggest that they would he think yeah how are you different today than you were.

As a young mom is there anything that you wish you would've implemented as a young mom that you've learned over the years, the answer is resoundingly yes, what would it be I'm not really sure I am without question radically different than it was as a young mom because I was just trying to figure out life as trying to figure out marriage and just arriving absolutely is just surviving and the police got a wanted it God's way that I can really know what that was.

So I was trying to figure that out, and so I didn't have the space in my life to write prayer saying that the space in my life to do the kind of Bible study tonight have in my life right now and so a lot of those years I look back I was just frantic really frantically trying to keep pace with all that was happening in my life was praying and I was reading the Bible and doing those things.

But I didn't have the space to really think and I don't that's what I need as part of the way I'm wired as I need alone time. I need time to kinda decompress and think and evaluate and very contemplative by nature and so that the nature raising kids is not contemplation. It's fast-paced. It's crazy.

You're constantly responding to needs and demands and all of that and so was hard for me that was a hard season of life. I loved it.

I loved being a mom that it was hard for me to to keep my soul alive and refreshed because I didn't. I just didn't know how to manage that the chaos and everything that we dealt with. The reason I brought that up was because I felt many of those same things when our kids were younger and I felt a sense of guilt and shame. I did say that I didn't have more time that I should be doing more and I look at the different stages of a woman's life and I think now you do have the time and what a great gift for the young mom whose frantic and doesn't have the time to even read her Bible when she can to read a prayer like this. You can even scan through the pages and like even one of your prayers as the comparison delusion, and especially young moms today and women today. Now we have the comparison on the Internet.

Where were comparing everyone in the world just our friends but everyone everywhere.

So I think it's really important for us to not necessarily feel that guilt and shame because we might not be at a stage where we can put all the time and energy in these beautiful prayers write down what we can do is talk to God all day long running conversation with him. Maybe we can read a prayer I start my Bible when in the bathroom one in my car on the table and have it playing like I would even have the audio plan on my now you can do it on your phone.

I think it's so beautiful that you took the time to do this for us, but this will be for young moms is similar to me reading Susanna Wesley's mayors because that sort of gave me that connection on another level that I long for, but I couldn't do on my own so I'm hoping that this will be that for a lot of young moms that they'll be able to take a piece or even a line or paragraph and really commune with God in a way maybe that they haven't been this would be a great book for husbands to buy for their wives be a great gift, no I was just thinking I might've been reminded by somebody but when you know talk about those early years with her kids little and craziness and that's here run in the bathroom not having to go to the bathroom just to have a side job and you know the store.

We told many times but you know what I come along and see this and I go upstairs and write 10 ways you can make your life more manageable. I literally hinder that card.

We told a store and she ripped it up through life much better if I had this would be a gift to a young mom when it yeah because it was just a young Montana Mother's Day is coming up soon so there wondering if you had some subjects that you wrote prayers for where you were being empathetic, as opposed to personal where you said I know this is something that women are struggling with that I'm in a write up about this, even though it's not something that's a burden on my own heart is on.

Think about that I'm I'm wondering if David ever did that. Wondering if David ever sat down and said I'm gonna write a Psalm, a song for Israel to sing but because I'm struggling with this book because I know we are we are as a congregation is a country as a nation were struggling with these things so were all of these born out of your personal angst or were some of these because you saw what your daughters were dealing with her you had friends were doing stuff and you wrote up early I would answer by saying I think most of them were personal, the one and was referring to comparison delusion. I don't struggle with it in the same way that I did when I was younger but it still real still real, no matter what age you are, you're looking at someone else in your comparing all the time so that was just as real as some of the other one so I'm not sure any of them were done like this is a great topic.

I need to write about this if it wasn't born out of personal angst like a couple near the end. There's one in the incarnation, there's another one on the second coming of Christ. Those were important so much out of a personal need as much as I know this is true, and I want to help myself and others focus on the reality of what an amazing miraculous. They are not words to describe what it meant for Jesus to come and become a cell did that for us. I mean it just is so mind-boggling, so those two in particular were because I've just been learning so much about the incomprehensible nature of God. I wanted to put some of that on paper. The only time success almost declare there is no personal emotional trauma is exalted as a little about what you've done here and I think that all of your topics.

All of your prayers will hit the heart of every single woman they did for me.

Honestly, they were so beautiful again. You know I shouldn't admit this, but I see the 160 Michael got that one and was so beautiful you surprised that Dave is right that when I saw that you think of that. Trust me, but the thing that I found interesting about that one was, it wasn't really so much about sex but the seasons of your life as you reflect and thought through young married now.

It was so beautiful my. While that's a journey that you let us into but yet bring it to God and his perspective.

So here's what things I would say to a listener that you model for us. How about tonight you pick up your pen were digitally if you want to do it right. A prayer out maybe never done it before. I remember first time ever did that. It was a real sort of awkward but sure that as I did. It was like, well, my real thoughts are getting down on paper, but I would add this because is what I think you model before you put your pencil down asked God his heart and perspective and listen and write it.

So don't and that just with the complaint honestly model but at the end say okay go, what you saying to me about what I'm writing here listen to gravel speak and then you'll end up where you take us almost every time still trust you and this is so interesting, Barbara, Dave and I when we were dating is when our faith was newly started journaling every day and we have those journals that from 1979 and down.

A lot of those are prayers that we wrote out in prayer request, but it for our kids to go back in to read those.

It's so amazing because it's a glimpse into your heart and your intimacy of love and relationship with Jesus and so I love that I love that you've written these out and I would encourage listeners to like. If you have the time, write them out and ask God because you're right Dave so often will pray will ask God for things and sometimes we just need to listen with him and that's how you develop a relationship gone and I do think that there was something very transformational about doing this for me. I know that it positively changed my relationship with God, and I really do love him more than I did before and just a wonderful place to be. You are welcome here anytime you come back and thank you for the book on what we want to encourage listeners to get your book and not just read through it but the start praying their way through it to infect were making the book available right now for listeners who can support the work of family life to which I know is something that you been passionate about for a long time family life today is entirely listener dependent to be on this local radio station for the podcast to continue for you to be able to listen when you want where you want.

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He is, or call one 800 FL today make a donation over the phone and again asked for Barbara's new book and were happy to send it out to you as a thank you gift for your ongoing support of the work of family life to the grateful for your partnership with us and we hope you have a great week and hope you and your family are able to make some memories together this weekend and worship together. Hope you can join us Monday when working to introduce you to Esther fleece, Alan, who has learned the importance of honest and authentic when it means people know about this sure her story. Hope you can tune in for that engineer today. Keep going along with our entire broadcast on behalf of our hosts Dave Wilson. See back Monday for another edition of family life family like to use the production of family life of Little Rock, Arkansas. A crew ministry help for today hope for tomorrow