Struggling in Prayer: Seeking to 'Pray Big' with Alistair Begg

 About a month ago, our pastor bought copies of Alistair Begg's Pray Big: Learning to Pray Like an Apostle (TheGoodBook Company, 2019) for our congregation, inviting us to pursue a life of persistent and purposeful prayer together.  Personal prayer has always been a struggle for me.  It's not that I find it difficult to find some time to pray for the needs of family and friends; it's not that I find it hard to praise God for His majesty, glory, and goodness; it's not that I doubt God's attentiveness or responsiveness.  Rather, I struggle to find intimacy and connection in my prayer life, and as a result have found it difficult to devote significant time and energy to spending time alone with God in my 'prayer closet'.  

In several other fashions, I experience what I think is a close and vibrant relationship with God: I experience His reality and presence in worship; I love His Word and experience His truth communication through reading Scripture; I enjoy learning, reading, and teaching theology, Bible, and apologetics; I find spiritual reward in serving others through church and community.  But I have always felt that my prayer life is lacking.

I'm not convinced that reading Alistair Begg's Pray Big has cured my shortcomings in prayer.  But nonetheless, I was reminded of many important truths regarding prayer, and learned a number of new things.  Given my passion for reading and teaching, I wanted to share six insights from Pray Big that I pray will be an encouragement and exhortation for you.

I. For Whom the Bell Tolls

Who do we pray for?  Begg's final chapter answers this question in helpful triune fashion:

1. For Your Sake

"We need to pray for ourselves, for humans are dependent beings." (95) More on that shortly.

2. For Their Sake

"Second, we can learn from the focus of Paul's prayers in Ephesians - those around us. ... Our prayers reveal our priorities and our pre-occupations; and as we listen in on Paul, we realize that his focus is on those who have become the objects of his concern and of his affection. ... It is always good to be praying more for others than for ourselves.  In our selfie-obsessed culture, praying this way reminds us that we are not the center of the world, and that our needs are not necessarily the most pressing in our churches." (96-97)

3. For His Sake

"We are praying, first and foremost, for the glory of God. ... He is the God who is perfect, powerful, and infinitely, eternally praiseworthy." (99)

II. Pray Out of Your Dependence

Henry Martyn: "It was more easy for a minister to preach and study five hours, than to pray for his people for one half hour." (22) Ouch - that hurts.  I certainly have no struggles reading, studying, and writing for hours on end.  But setting aside an hour to be in silent communal prayer ... that's tough.

"Haven't you found that it is far easier to talk to others than to talk to God?  Haven't you found it far easier to be engaged in busy activity, to be about good work, to be busy checking off the to-do list, than to stop and kneel before your Father? ...

"Are you recognizing your dependence?  That's the challenge. ... So here is one way both to diagnose whether you are dependent and then to start to address any lack in your praying.  Simply ask yourself: Will I pray before and after I hear God's word preached to me next Sunday?" (22-23)

III. UnChristian Prayer

"There is, of course, such a thing as unchristian prayer.  Looking within to find spiritual reality is not the same as praying to God.  Self-help mantras are not the same as praying to the One who is our Helper. ...

"This is modern religion, and it comes in many guises (including a quasi-Christian one), but the view can always be summed up in those four words: We can fix this.  So if you've got a problem, you need to know that it's not your fault.  And if you're looking for an answer, look inside of you because you'll be able to fix it, or look to follow our rules or techniques because they'll be able to fix it. ...

"It's the complete opposite.

"This is why Christian prayer is uniquely dependent and humble." (26-27)

Begg notes that Christian prayer recognizes that we cannot fix our most significant problems, and that even our ability to 'fix' some problems is dependent upon God's goodness and grace.

IV. Praying for Health?

"Praying about health (which, if we had the chance to listen in on the prayers of Western Christians, would likely come in at number one) is rare - almost non-existent - in the Bible.  So why are we praying about it so much?

"It's because we don't want to die.

"We want to live.  We've got a sneaking suspicion that what we've got now, this side of death, is actually better than what God has for us then, on the other side of death.  So we want to hang on to what we've got." (30)

But what does Scripture say?  "You have now been raised with Christ into the heavenly places.  You have been made part of a family that will never come to an end.  One day, you will live in a new heaven and a new earth.  You will your God face to face and, with a heart no longer burdened and distracted by sin and a body no longer broken and decaying in frailty, you will praise him.

"And you and I just want to pray that we'd stay healthy and live long?!  All that matters may be brought before God, but what we bring before God is not always what matters most." (31)

V. The Greatest Thing: Knowing God

"This is a lonely world.  We so often feel ourselves alone.  Social media isn't satisfying (however many likes you get).  Friends let us down or are busy.  Everybody wants somebody to come and help, to come and hold their hand.  Let me tell you what you really need.  You need to look at God.  You need to know God.  You need to know there is a Creator and a Sustainer of everyone and everything, and that he is your kind Father." (47)

Authentic prayer starts with an understanding of who God is, how much He loves us, and how desperately we need Him.

VI. No God? No Hope.  Know God? Know Hope

The Baby Boomer generation "have attempted to cover up and to deny the pervasive sense of hopelessness which is part and parcel of the average funeral. ... unable to face the reality of our own mortality, we turn it into a party.  We turn it into a video show.  We turn it into whatever we can turn it into to try and deny the reality of death itself.  Why is that?  Because death is hopeless.  It saps the hope from life because it promises the end of everything.  No achievement or accumulation can survive the finality of death. ... No God, no hope.

"'But God ...' - what glorious words! - 'being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ' (Eph 2:4-5).

"Know God, know hope.

"The hope of the gospel is real.  It is certain.  And it needs to be embraced emotionally as well as understood intellectually." (51)

Has my prayer life been transformed?  I wish I could say it has; but not yet.  I still have a long way to go, a lot to learn, and a lot to apply.  But I hope these thoughts from Alistair Begg's Pray Big both challenge and uplift you as they have me.