Urbana 2009

It's 2010 and blogging still happens!


But what I have to share today comes from 2009.

This is Pastor Sunder Krishnan, one of the speakers at Urbana 2009. Although it was a missions conference, he gave a sermon on how to pray, and, in doing so, he completely unveiled a huge area of doubt in my life.


To be clear, my faith in God has always been strong. In my head, I've been able to consciously assent to the reality of a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent, and, most importantly, loving being for most of my adult life. But there is a difference between believing in God and actually trusting in Him, and one place that difference will show up is in your prayer life.


Pastor Sunder pointed out that most Christians are pretty content praying for people the following prayer, "Dear God, you know this person's situation. Please help them. Amen." Of course most of our prayers aren't that short, but they follow the same basic template. Yet this prayer reveals, especially through its lack of specificity, just how much we think God is actually going to do something about the situation.

Let me explain a little further: Imagine there's a fire. You run around looking for help when you finally find someone a few blocks away. Unfortunately, it's a baby in an unattended stroller. Now imagine how different your conversation would be if, instead of a baby, you ran into a fully equipped firefighter.


For most of us, our prayers sound a lot more like they're directed towards the stroller, and a lot less toward a loving, wise, and powerful God. This makes a lot of sense, just as long as you're not talking about the God of Jesus Christ.


Here's the guide to prayer that Pastor Sunder outlined based on Acts 4. Basically, the idea is to pray both acknowledging and keeping the following four essential aspects of who God really is at the forefront of your prayer:



1. God is Sovereign: he truly is in control

2. God the Creator: he invites us to take part in his plan

3. God the Revealer: he is speaking the news about himself today, calling the world to trust in Him through his son, Jesus Christ.

4. God the Actor in history: he not only knows, he acts

Give it a try and let me know how it goes for you!