November 25, 2007 Message

Psalm 40:1-3
“What Happens When We Pray: Does It Change Anything?”

One summer, some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t get their brand-new 22-foot motorboat to do what it was suppose to do. It wouldn’t get up to speed at all, and it was really sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power was applied.

After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted over to a nearby marina, thinking someone there could tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working order. The engine ran fine, and everything else seemed to be okay.
Then, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath. He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard. Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer.

What’s this to do with today’s lesson? Just wait…

The last two Sundays, we have touched on two of three questions concerning prayer, ‘Why are we to pray?’ and ‘How do we pray?’ I have concluded, “We pray because we desperately need to – even though we are not always ready to.” It is how God wants us to live, as modeled by Jesus, our Lord. We pray all the time, because God is here, right beside us, all the time - especially when it doesn’t appear God is answering our prayers. It is just that we need to listen!

Today we conclude our series on prayer by answering the question, “What Happens When We Pray: Does It Change Anything?” Perhaps we need only look to Psalm 40 for help in answering this question. Verses 1-3 read (The Message): “I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn't slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.”

We wait. Then, God lifts us up, as we learn to ‘sing a new song of praise’ to our God. We “enter the mystery, abandoning ourselves to God.” And that’s exactly what happens. It is a mystery for sure, but it is as simple – or complex – as that! We wait. We “patiently” wait, having thrown up a “cry” (40:1) like a lifeline, to God, hoping God will grab it. When we do, God does.

Of course, our rescue doesn’t happen in the blink of an eye or in the time it takes to cry, “Save me!” Those who have been brought up from the pits of despair testify to a stressful journey. Yet that just increases the gratitude and praise.

God lifts us up. God is the agent of change. God initiates the lifting action. God lifts us up. God does not pull us down. Our being stuck in the mud is not because God has put us there in the first place. God lifts us out of the ditch and the deep mud, from along side the road we should be on. God lifts us from a place where forward movement, any movement, is impossible because we find ourselves “stuck in the mud.” God sets our feet on the road again. God lifts us, from the ditch and the deep mud to a solid rock (pavement). We’re safe. We can walk with confidence again.

We learn to ‘sing praise’ to our God. Psalm 40 provides another way; it is a model prayer that combines both movements of our soul — the fear of falling and grateful praise for being rescued. Life might often be described as a rhythm of falling and praising, praising and falling, then praising again. Doesn’t it sometimes seem that way? When we believe our depression will literally suck us into a dark pit and never let us go or our fears of what might happen make our feet seem as if they are stuck in deep, gooey mud. We are unable to move and our faith is wrapped tightly by our fear. Somehow a hand reaches out in the darkness. A word comes from the Lord, often spoken by another person, that lifts us… as our fears are reduced and our faith strengthened. We take the next best step, trusting God, resting in the confidence that the future belongs to the Lord and not to us alone. We are lifted from the ditch – to standing on solid ground, probably still covered in mud, but alive again, no longer afraid, but now giving thanks and praise to the God of our salvation.

All this happens when we “enter the mystery, abandoning ourselves to God” – in prayer. An important lesson of this psalm is that praise precedes petition. This joyful praise comes from the remembrance of past experiences of God’s goodness and deliverance. What has been done in the past becomes the ground of all praise and thanksgiving and the sure confidence that God will indeed continue to deliver in the future. Faithful believers can live boldly in the present by recalling the past with hope for the future.

Because we know God was with us in the past, we are more confident that God is with us now and will be with us in the future. This allows us to step out in faith, not because we are confident in ourselves, but because we know God will always be with us.
We become transformed into wholeness, living obediently in grateful praise, “delighting to do God’s will.” God enables us to understand things differently, making it possible for us to “change our tune” from a sad song to a song of praise. Our praise and thanksgiving then leads to singing a new song, telling others the glad news of deliverance, bearing witness to God’s faithfulness by word and deed. The Psalmist describes all these acts as responses to God’s saving help – and a way of saying, “Here I am Lord.”

What the psalmist helps us to understand is that our abandoning ourselves and trusting in God is a green light, a sign to God that we are ready to receive what God can give us. Remember the story of the boat earlier in the message, and the owner failure to disconnect it from the trailer?
One of the great stories of faith is the story of Ruby Bridges as related by Robert Coles, who has written so much about the development of children.

He met her when she was a 6-year-old girl. She was African-American. She attended a public school. But every day as she went to school, she had to pass through rows of adults screaming threats and insults at her. Coles and others noticed that every day as she went through the rows of screaming adults, protected by federal marshals, you could sometimes see her lips moving. Coles discovered Ruby was praying. She was praying for strength to endure the abuse, and she was praying to God to forgive the people yelling at her.

A 6-year-old girl got it. She understood how to be receptive to God. She knew if she trusted in God and sought what God could give her, God would see her trust as a green light and God would come to her and come into her life with strength and grace.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of “When Bad Things Happen To Good People,” has said, “Prayer is not asking. Prayer is not pleading. Prayer is not bringing our wish list to God. Prayer is simply coming into the presence of God and being changed by that… Simply being in the presence of God makes it possible for me to live in a messy world, unfair world… The purpose of praying to God when you’re in dire straits is not to make the problem go away. It’s to make it possible for you to live in a pain-filled world because God is holding your hand.”

Why do we pray? We pray because we desperately need to – even though we are not always ready to.

How do we pray? We pray all the time, because God is here, right beside us, all the time, listening to us as we should be listening to God – all the time. We enter the mystery of God’s presence in prayer, abandoning ourselves to God.

What happens when we pray? Does it change anything? Yes it does. When we pray, we are changed.

And that can be very good news indeed!