Listening Prayer

Intro: What have we been talking about these last few weeks?

Prayer: What types?

Now we’re going to talk about what’s called listening prayer

Do you remember talking about silence and solitude last summer?

Did any specifics stick out to you?

Silence and solitude are very similar to listening prayer. I’d actually say that they’re almost identical, so let’s talk about it.

Psalm 131 ESV

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.

This is what listening prayer is supposed to feel like

A child is weaned when they no longer get milk from their mother, so the relationship is a little different. Before that, the child would always see their mom as a way to get food, but after they are weaned, the baby isn’t frantic searching for food, because they get comfort from their mother.

Prayer can feel like that, and I think that listening prayer is a way to do that.

The goal of listening prayer is to spend time listening and being aware of God instead of just talking at Him,

What are we doing?

Talking about listening prayer can feel really weird, so we should probably figure out what we’re actually doing when we’re doing listening prayer.

The Wilderness

Throughout Jesus’ lifetime, He would go out to “the wilderness” to pray. When we think of wilderness, we probably think of forests and lots of trees and green, but for Jesus it was probably a lot more about dirt and sand and rocks, but all throughout Jesus’ ministry, He would go.

Luke 6:12–13 ESV

In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles:

Luke 5:16 ESV

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Also, when Jesus began His ministry, He started by going out into the wilderness and fasted for 40 days

Jesus spent a lot of time away from people praying. That was kind of His norm for ministry: He would go out and teach and preach and be with people, and then He would retreat into the wilderness and pray.

Do you think that He was talking that whole time?!

There’s no way! It’s not as though He could just be talking at the Father all night, He would have had to listen at some point right?

And that’s true for us too. We can spend a lot of time talking at God and asking and thanking, but then we don’t tend to stop and listen and not be the one talking, which is a bummer because I really do believe that God communicates with us.

It’s probably not going to be an audible voice, but we might get some thoughts or inclinations or feelings that are very different from what we normally experience, and that’s God moving.

So, much like Jesus, when we practice listening prayer, we are retreating into the wilderness of God to spend time with Him and Him alone.

We don’t have to run off into a mountain to do it though, we can just go in a room and shut the door.

Breathing - Pneuma

Part of preparation for this sermon involved a lot of reading about how to do this, and pretty much every one of the books I read talked about how breathing was important.

They said that good posture is helpful, and being able to focus on our breathing when we get distracted is really important.

I was super interested as to why, and someone I was talking with provided something helpful.

The word for the Spirit (like the Holy Spirit) in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, is called pneuma (πνεῠμα)

That word also means breath, and the Bible talks about the breath of God being given to us in the beginning of creation in Genesis.

So, what my friend said was that, when we get distracted in our prayer and we take a second to focus on our breathing, we are using the breath of God that He gave us to speak the name of God and to breathe in the Spirit of God.

When we stop in our prayers to think about this, then we can find some encouragement and peace in that.

This isn’t meditation or new ageism.

Something that we have to mention at this point is that this isn’t meditation or new ageism.

Meditation is the practice of emptying your mind of everything so that you can feel as though you become one with the universe, and new ageism is a form of spirituality that rejects any concept of God or even being a person.

Both of those things are false and are cheap knock-offs of what Christians have been doing for two thousand years.

Those who would understand and practice spiritual formation in the way of Jesus Christ should not deny the power of thought just because some people make a religion of it, and would use it as a basis for helping healing with no reference to Christ. Breakfast is a good idea, and I do not plan to give it up because Hindus practice it. - Dallas Willard

What that means is: just because a false religion has taken something that Christians have done, does not make the Christian practice bad.

Meditation is false, but silence with God is good. New ageism is demonic, being in a relationship with God is what we were created for.

Focus

Part of what really moves this beyond and far away from meditation and new ageism is the focus.

There are a few things that you can focus on in your time of listening.

Aspect of God.

Maybe you want to focus on the goodness of God, or how merciful or just He is. We fill our minds with that, and then we enter into the time of listening, and just see what comes up.

Scripture

This is one of my favorite things. Maybe you read a verse or phrase and it really sticks out to you. Well, read the verse, fill your mind with the verse or phrase, and then listen to God about what He has to say on it.

Maybe it’s even just a word in the Bible that sticks out to you, so you can even just sit and reflect on that word and what God is communicating to you in light of it.

So, that is a real basic structure on what we are doing when we’re doing a time in listening prayer.

But, we should probably talk about how we practice listening prayer.

Practical Listening

Now that we have an idea as to what’s going on and the spiritual side of this, let’s talk about how we actually do this.

Turn off your phones and be alone.

This is important! You’re not actually alone with your phone, and you’re always going to have that itch to get on your phone if you don’t remove it.

Something that I do is I like to turn my phone on do not disturb, put it far away from me, and then set a timer for it.

Being separate from your phone is always a good thing, but especially when it comes to prayer.

Listen to God on one of your focuses.

Whether it’s a phrase, word, or aspect of God, fill your mind with that, and ask God to be near to you.

Sometimes I like to imaging myself sitting with Jesus as I think on these things.

You’re not actually there, but it’s helpful for me.

You probably won’t hear some audible voice, but I’m confident that God speaks to us in different ways, we just have to be open to it.

When you get distracted, breathe.

We will get distracted, that’s how things work.

But, we can come back to focusing on breathing for a second, and then go back into prayer.

Something that you can add in is what’s called a breath prayer

it’s just a short little prayer that you can pray that’s supposed to draw your focus.

It can even be just praying the name of Jesus, or a favorite verse, it’s up to you!

Know that it’s not magic.

You will not suddenly be a super Christian for doing this, and there’s nothing magic about it. It’s relational.

So, we’re going to be distracted and try to focus and feel weird and that’s ok. The point isn’t making anything happen, it’s spending time with Jesus.

Do 2 minutes

How long do you think you could go without talking?

What is listening prayer?

What are your initial thoughts about listening prayer?

What are the challenges you might face with listening prayer?