Change and Courage, Prayer and Sanctification

Featured Study Material

A Praying Life by Paul Miller

 

Paul Miller on his book, A Praying Life.

The book opens with a chapter on our frustrations with prayer and another that describes where we’re headed. Part 1, “Learning to Pray Like a Child,” examines the basics of relating to our heavenly Father like a little child. In part 2, “Learning to Trust Again,” we go deeper and look at some adult habits that can dull our hearts to prayer and keep us from being drawn into the life of the Father. Part 3, “Learning to Ask Your Father,” examines barriers to asking that come from the spirit of our age. Part 4, “Living in Your Father’s Story,” is where it all comes together. When we have a praying life, we become aware of and enter into the story God is weaving in our lives. The final part, “Praying in Real Life,” introduces some simple tools and ways of praying that have helped many people learn to pray. As we look at these tools, we’ll continue to learn about our hearts and how God weaves stories in our lives. 

Excerpt from Prologue by David Powlinson, CCEF Professor 

Talking life over with this on-scene God is the sort of conversation worth calling “prayer.” You find several hundred examples in the Bible, and Paul Miller has listened. The Bible’s prayers traffic in both daily life and the real God. They bring real troubles and need to a God who really listens. They never seem like a production. They sound and feel real because they are real.
Paul offers you a vision for how a working fellowship with God thinks, talks, feels, and acts. He takes you inside his family life and his prayer life. By seeing how life and God weave together, you’ll discover the joy of living as God’s child, experiencing the adventure of walking closely with your Father and good Shepherd. 

Consider how you might champion individuals in your group to live with courage and expectancy in light of the promise that He is continuing to mold us into the likeness of His Son.  Romans 8:9-39, 2 Corinthians 3:16-18.  A mystery common to prayer and sanctification is that each invites us into a relational activity with the One who is all powerful, all present and has ordained our days, yet is somehow impacted by our participation.  Moreover we are changed by our participation.  Often the question posed is, "How will we participate?"  Will we partner with the flesh or with the Spirit?

As many people are 'picture thinkers', the words of Sue Monk Kidd can be quite helpful when trying to relay the value of partnering with the Spirit in the process of sanctification.

When the moment to spin the chrysalis arrives, some actually resist and cling to their larval life. They put off entering the cocoon until the following spring, postponing their transformation a year or more. This state of clinging has a name; it's called the "diapause"....I smiled...all God's creatures have trouble letting go..."Clinging" comes from "clingan" meaning "shrink"...clinging creates a shrinking within the soul, a shrinking of possibility and growth. 

The opposite of courage isn't only fear but security...where there's no risk, there's no becoming; and where there's no becoming, there's no real life...the ones who touch the edges of life - are people who risk, who let go. Courage comes from the French word, coeur, meaning "heart". In order to travel from clinging to letting go, we have to "take heart."

Psalm 31: 21-24
Praise be to the LORD, for he showed me the wonders of his love when I was in a city under siege. In my alarm I said, “I am cut off from your sight!”  Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. Love the LORD, all his faithful people! The LORD preserves those who are true to him, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the LORD.