Knowing God Through Prayer

Scenario 1: You know it is going to cost you something so you approach your parents with a proposal. You explain you will take on several household chores, including all the yardwork for the duration of summer vacation. In exchange for the work, you will earn the required money to pay for your lifeline to the outside world — a new iphone (or even better, an android).

Scenario 2: Your dad found you staring vacantly into space and eventually realized your helpless situation. Being a loving father, he stops by the store, picks up a brand new phone and gives it to you that very evening. Overwhelmed by the love of your dad and in gratitude, you decide to step up and take on more chores around the house. You even volunteer to paint the house that so desperately needs it and you want to continually show your love and gratitude so you joyfully mow the lawn each week without even being asked.

Notice in both situations, the end result is the same: you get a new phone, the house gets painted, the lawn gets mowed, and your parents suddenly think you’ve been replaced by an angel. However, the manner in which the end came about is completely different. The second scenario is similar to how things work with God. There is nothing we can to do to earn favor with Him. But he loves us and cares for us so much that the Bible says he blesses us (Gen 1:28). It was even more evident when He sent his only son to die for us, so that we can live eternally with Him. The point I’m trying to make is this…

God loves us and cares for us so much that He wants a relationship with us.

Does anyone know who Anne Sullivan was? What about Helen Keller?

Explain who they are.

Communication is essential to any relationship. Often times, until we lose our phones, we take for granted the ease of communication. It’s as common as breathing or eating now. It’s so important to humanity and our existence that when we suffer a loss of it, whether visually, audibly, vocally, sensually, or tastefully (?), it become overwhelmingly harrowing.

So what does this have to do with prayer?

Message

In our call to discipleship, we recognize that we are to learn to imitate Jesus. There are many defining characteristics of Jesus’ character, but none are as intimate as His prayer time with the Father. If disciples are defined by following Jesus’ example, then Jesus’ disciples will pray. If our relationship with Christ is to be a healthy one, if we are to embrace the life of a disciple, then we have to spend time communicating with Him to stay close to Him and learn His heart.

Today we will look at a simple truth: you can not follow Christ if you don’t know where He’s going. We will discuss the fact that prayer is our way to communicate with God and keep an open relationship with our Savior so we can walk in His steps. Unlike smartphones, you can’t lose this method of communicating.

Read Jeremiah 29:12 and Jeremiah 33:3

Who is speaking in this passage? o Answer: God •

What is God saying here? o Allow students to answer as they will. If they give a surface answer at first, that’s fine. You’re about to dig in a bit deeper. •

This is a short verse. But there are two very important concepts implied here.

Can you identify them?

1. The first is that God wants our prayers. He wants to be in communication with us.

2. The second is that God essentially promises that He will respond to our prayers. He basically tell us that He will engage with us if we reach out to Him. •

What if God didn’t want us to pray to Him? Would it change His character any at all? Would He be less God? Explain your answer.

Answers will vary. The purpose of this question isn’t to come up with a concrete answer either way. The goal is really to set up your next point, and to help your students think a little about God’s character and nature. Encourage students to hash this out a bit

God could have created a relationship with us where prayer wasn’t necessary. After all, He made the rules! He knows what we need. He could easily have crafted relationship between Himself and people in such a way that He could have given us what He knows we need without ever having to worry about us praying to Him.

God didn’t do that. God set it up so that there would be lines of communication open between Him and us. Think for a moment about how amazing this is: the God of the universe, the creator of all things WANTS to hear us call out to Him! Furthermore, He promises to engage with us in communication as well. That is totally remarkable stuff.

But how do we hear Him?

We’ll come back to that in a minute, but first I want to talk about the importance of prayer.

If we doubt the importance of prayer, we can look to Jesus as a model (which, as far as models go, is a pretty good one).

Luke 5:16.

• The descriptive words in this passage are very important. What words do you see that describe the manner and place of Jesus’ prayers?

o Answer: He “withdrew” to “desolate” places.

• Why do you think it was important that Jesus withdrew from others so He could pray?

o Answer: His prayers were an intimate time between Him and the Father. There is a time for public prayer, but it does not replace time alone in conversation with God. He made a conscious effort to let others know that this time was important and He desired to be alone with God.

• How do you withdraw from others so that you can pray? Are you intentional about that?

o Answers will vary.

• Why do you think Jesus found “desolate places” to pray?

o Answers will vary, but may include His desire not to be interrupted. Jesus also was a busy person, in high demand to meet the needs of those He encountered. He needed to remove distractions so He could focus on the Father’s will and hear from Him.

• Are you able to find or create “desolate places” where you can protect your prayer time? How?

o Answers will vary. Share how you have found success guarding your prayer time with fewer interruptions. Encourage them to brainstorm ideas such as going outside or putting up a sign on their door.

PROJECT (10-Minutes): Hand out a black piece of paper - nice paper so it’s memorable. Next, have the student go somewhere isolated and write a letter to God (or simply pray quietly to Him) telling him everything that’s troubling them, they’re grateful for, whatever questions they have for Him, etc. Finally, have them sit silently and listen - turn the paper over and write what the things they think God is saying to them or wants to say to them or any Bible references that they think of.

It can be difficult to find time in our busy schedules to be still and quiet so that we can have uninterrupted time with God. We live in a fast-paced, high-demand society where people don’t always understand the value of silence, much less prayer. We have to be intentional to create and protect our time with God. Jesus knew this and had a plan. We’re going to discuss this plan in our small groups.

Small Groups

First, going back to the project -

Something to keep in mind with prayer is that God's timing is perfect. You may find that you've prayed and are eagerly waiting for His response, but then you feel like you hear nothing. Sometimes God doesn't answer right away. Sometimes He outright says, "No." Sometimes He says, "Not now." Sometimes the answer isn't exactly what we are looking for. But God knows what we need most. Leave those decisions up to Him.

• How can we know that what we think God said is from God?

o Answer: If you feel that you have heard a specific message or answer about a question you have prayed about, examine that answer with these questions:

Is what I'm hearing confusing and vague or right to the point? God doesn't like to put us through confusion. "For God is not a God of confusion but of peace" (1 Corinthians 14:33). He won't send mixed messages.

Does this answer go against God's Word? If so, it's not God. God will NOT contradict Himself.

Would acting out the answer lead you to sin? Those who live by the Spirit will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature (Galatians 5:16).

Discuss Mark 1:35

• What descriptive word do you see repeated from our previous passage?

o Answer: Desolate

• How was Jesus able to find this desolate place away from interruptions?

o Answer: He got up early while it was still dark.

• How many of you would consider yourself a morning person?

o Allow for some brief responses.

• Why is it harder to find time alone when you get up after the day is underway and bustling with other people?

o Allow for responses.

• When we talk about creating and protecting time with God, it requires an intentional action to withdraw from others to desolate places. Most people don’t get up earlier than they have to. With that in mind, why is the early morning a good time for prayer?

o Answer: No one else will be up. You can be alone.

• Can you think of any other reasons why the morning is a good time to hear from God and focus your heart on Him?

o Answers will vary. Steer students toward the idea that we need to seek Him first! If we begin our day seeking God, we can spend more time praising Him and less time confessing a wasted day!

• Please emphasize that spending time with him at other times is still okay. If their mornings are too busy, that’s okay.

• Have you ever stopped to take inventory of your prayer life? Let’s do that now. First, let’s take stock of how often we pray.

Raise your hand if you pray daily. Weekly? Monthly? Less?

o Without names, keep a running tally on the marker board with categories: daily, weekly, monthly, less.

• Second, let’s look at WHEN we pray. Raise your hand if you pray in the morning when you first wake up. At bedtime? Only at meals? Random times throughout the day?

o Without names, keep a running tally on the marker board with a new column for the categories: morning, evening, meals, random

• Last, let’s look at WHAT we pray. Take a minute and talk with the person next to you and brain storm the things you have prayed for in the last week or month. When you have a good list, be ready to share some with the group.

Oftentimes, our prayer life consists only of our “want list,” where we make our requests known to God. This is certainly an important part of prayer. God tells us to pour out our requests to Him. But explain that this is not the main purpose of prayer.

• Imagine if you had a friend who only spoke to you to ask you for favors. Would you consider that a healthy relationship?

We don’t only pray to God to ask Him what He can do for us. We pray to commune with God and align our hearts with His.

Philippians 4:6-7

• What is Paul instructing Christ-followers to do with their concerns?

o Answer: He tells them to let go of the stress by taking their concerns to God through prayer.

• What do we stand to gain when we surrender our needs and fears to God in prayer rather than attempting (hopelessly, by the way) to control them ourselves?

o Answer: The peace of God. God tells us that when we come to Him we can be anxious about less, and that He will guard our hearts and minds. This is how we align our lives with God’s purpose.

• Prayer is the language of our relationship with God. To seek this kind of closeness with God, we go beyond making requests. Aside from our wants, what are some things that should be included in our prayers?

o Try to steer them toward the ideas of thankfulness (think of our worship), praise for who God is, or even less immediate requests like a desire for wisdom or participation in God’s work on earth. The idea is to take the focus off themselves, and to see the bigger picture of prayer.

• You can see by our list that there are a lot of good reasons to talk to God. But this list can’t contain the best part of prayer: the things that God wants to say to us! When we focus more on God than on ourselves, we learn to hear His voice. There are things He wants to say to each of us, and we all have to learn to listen. When you spend time in prayer this week, add in a little bit of quiet time to just listen and ask God to speak to you. You’ll be surprised the ways He will use to do it.

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