Highland’s Women’s Minister, Lawana Maxwell, and I co-lead a class for adults on Wednesday nights called Quest. The class is designed to push adults deeper in their spiritual lives. As Lawana and I were preparing the curriculum, she suggested a compelling book she had read. It’s been a spiritually formative book for our class.
The book is by Nabeel Qureshi and is called Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. The book is Nabeel’s account of leaving his family of origin and his Islamic faith and embracing Christianity. He lost nearly everything in the exchange.
● For months after his conversion his family attempted to reconvert him to Islam by sending Imam after Imam to him.
● When he decided to marry a Christian woman, they refused to come to the wedding.
● And when he gave up his plans to become a doctor in order to enter Christian ministry, it was the final straw.
He now has stage four cancer which has responded unsuccessfully to treatment. But, as he remarks in the epilogue of his book, the suffering he’s endured has been worth it. He writes, “All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.”[1]
As Nabeel recounts his spiritual journey, one of the milestones he highlights was a prayer he prayed. He had travelled to Britain for a massive Muslim gathering where he hoped to connect with friends and family he hadn’t seen in years. Tens of thousands of people were present at this United Kingdom “jalsa.” Upon arriving, he realized how impossible it was going to be to find his friends (this was before the ease of texting and gps maps). So he prayed. He asked God to help him find his friends. When he opened his eyes, he was surprised to see two streaks of color in the sky before him, one gold and one silver.[2] He followed those streaks, like the Wise Men following the star, and he was led to his friends.
That strange, mystical experience, pushed him over the edge in terms of faith in God. From that point on in his life, he never doubted there was a God. And that was part of what enabled him to endure the suffering he would face as he wrestled with faith in Christ in the years ahead.
I teach a class for Lipscomb University. We begin the class by having students spend twenty minutes each sharing their spiritual story. They are asked to indicate the milestones in their walk with God. It’s not uncommon for one or more of them to indicate a time of prayer as one of those milestones.
The time of prayer that I spent on my last sabbatical remains one of the significant spiritual milestones in my journey. It’s one that always gets put on the list when I share my story. Perhaps in your own life with God a time of prayer stands out as a milestone.
This is definitely the case in Scripture. For many of the people of God, prayer accompanied the most extraordinary milestones. If you read from Genesis to Revelation, you’ll find that some of the most significant milestones are accompanied by prayer. Here are 12 examples:
|
Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
Gen. 18 – The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great because their sin is grave. God sees no option but destruction in order to end the suffering and injustice in these cities. Yet there are innocent people remaining in the city. |
Abraham prays for God to withhold the destruction in order to evacuate the innocent people. |
Lot and his family are saved. |
|
Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
1 Sam. 1 – A barren woman named Hannah is mistreated and in despair. |
Hannah prays to the LORD at Shiloh, asking “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” |
Hannah and her husband Elkanah conceive a son and name him Samuel. God will use him to find and anoint David as king. |
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Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
1 Sam. 7 – The Philistines are warring against the Israelites, causing Israel great fear. |
Samuel prays to God: “And Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.” |
The Philistines are defeated: “…the Philistines drew near to attack Israel. But the Lord thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were defeated before Israel.”
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|
Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Israelites travelling to Jerusalem for the feasts. |
Ps. 120-134 Psalms of Ascents |
|
Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Jesus at his baptism |
21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying… (Lk 3:21-22 ESV) |
|
Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Jesus at the choosing of the Twelve |
12 In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles… (Lk 6:12-13 ESV) |
|
Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Jesus at his Transfiguration |
28 Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. (Lk 9:28-29 ESV) |
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Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Jesus in Gethsemane |
39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” (Matt. 26:39 ESV) |
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Milestone |
Prayer |
|
Jesus on the cross |
34 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”…46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” (Lk. 23:34, 46 ESV) |
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Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
Acts 1-2 – Jesus ascends to heaven, leaving the disciples by themselves. |
About 120 disciples “were devoting themselves to prayer.” (1:14) |
The Holy Spirit is poured out and three thousand are baptized. |
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Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
Acts 12 – Herod the king kills James the brother of John and arrests Peter. |
The church prays for Peter: “So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.” (Acts 12:5 ESV) |
Peter is miraculously freed: “And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his hands.” (Acts 12:7 ESV) |
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Situation |
Prayer |
Outcome |
|
Acts 13 – The gospel has yet to spread into much of the ancient world. |
The church in Antioch engages in prayer. |
In the context of prayer/ fasting, the Spirit instructs the church to anoint and send Paul and Barnabas for mission work: “While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.” (Acts 13:2-3 ESV) |
Again and again, milestone after milestone is accompanied by prayer.
And yet, with one of the shortest verses in the Bible, Paul unlocks a whole new vision of prayer and life with God:
“pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17)
We’re spending four Sunday mornings exploring this verse, the theology and spirituality underlying it, and ways to put it into practice. And what Paul unleashes here is this important truth: For the people of God, prayer doesn’t just accompany the most extraordinary milestones–it also accompanies the most ordinary minutes. We don’t have to wait for life-changing milestones in order to engage in prayer. We don’t have to wait for momentous events in order to experience spiritual highs with God. The most ordinary moments of the day also carry with them the potential for rich and rewarding prayer. This is what Paul means when he calls us to pray without ceasing.
Thus far, we’ve looked at two specific practices designed to help us experience this: the Jesus Prayer–praying all day “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me”; and Practicing the Presence of God–carrying on a running conversation with God throughout the day.
This morning we explore a third, and related, discipline. We’ll call it Liturgy of the Ordinary after the title of a book by an author named Tish Harrison Warren. Liturgy of the Ordinary is a practice that can help us experience praying without ceasing.
She and I am using liturgy to refer a practice that we repeat regularly to help us draw near to God. We often associate liturgy with things we do in church. But there are liturgies we can engage in through the ordinary moments of life that help us connect with God.
Tish Harrison Warren walks through an ordinary day. She shows how 11 common things that happen during a typical day can actually be liturgical moments. These are 11 things that often happen with repetition–they happen nearly every day. And because they repeat themselves regularly, they can be used as minutes in which we enter into spiritual conversation with God. They can trigger prayer and spiritual reflection. Here are the 11 ordinary things she noticed happening regularly in a day, nearly every day:
Any of these ordinary minutes during a typical day can be an opportunity for rich spiritual encounter with God.
Let me walk through three of them:
Prayer and rich spiritual conversation with God doesn’t just have to be limited to the major milestones of our lives. It can be experienced in the common minutes of our lives: every time we check our email, each time we eat leftovers, anytime we lose our keys, and a host of other recurring ordinary minutes in our lives. These repeating events trigger moments of prayer and reflection.
So, this week, here’s what I challenge you to do.
1. First, identify something common you do nearly every day. Something routine. Something habitual. Maybe it’s one of those 11 things listed by Warren. Maybe it’s something else: wash dishes. Change diapers. Pick up toys. Attend meetings. Walk the dog. Identify one ordinary thing you do with regularity nearly every day.
2. Second, every time you do that one thing this week, let it be a trigger for you to enter into some kind of prayer reflection and conversation with God. Allow that ordinary minute to become a kind of liturgy for you. Let that habit, that routine, become a trigger that allows you to enter into a brief time of prayer with God.
3. Finally, I’d love to hear from you this week. Tell me what you’ve chosen as that liturgy of the ordinary. If you use social media, write about it and use the hashtag #liturgyoftheordinary. Let’s encourage one another to pray without ceasing in this way.
