Bible prayers have a cooperate, “We are in it together” mentality

We use the words “I” and “me” in our prayers. Bible prayers use the words, “us” and “we.” There is more than semantics here. They had a much more communal understanding of prayer.

People who enjoy God are learning to enjoy their God in prayer together.

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he did not say, “My father…” He said pray like this, “Our father.”

When Isaiah confessed his sins he did not confess just his own sins: “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 6:5) He realized that we tend to compare ourselves with each other and that the whole standard was wrong.

Nehemiah did this same thing in verse six when he said, “I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father’s house, have committed against you.”

We tend to pray about my needs, my desires, my wants, my perspective. Bible prayers pray from the vantage point of our life together.

Not that we don’t have individual prayers. Jesus also said, Matthew 6:6 “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” This certainly speaks of a private prayer. But the content of the prayer is usually, “together with all the saints.”

I am not sure we truly care about the other saints as much as they did.

The Bible understands the connectedness of life; we see life as separate. They saw life as ocean; we see islands.

It is significant that when Nehemiah prayed the prayer above, he had never been to the land he is praying for. Yet he felt connected to them. He was some 600 miles away, yet he felt connected.

Prayers of the Bible also felt connected with reference to time and history. It was important to them that their grandchildren’s grandchildren’s grandchildren walked with God and were blessed by God. We are concerned with our kids, and our kids’ kids, and maybe occasionally on a balmy and reflective day at a mountain cabin we might think about our grandkids’ kids, but no further.

They were moved that they were a people that God had blessed two hundred, four hundred, two thousand years earlier. “We are the descendants of Abraham…” By New Testament times this was two thousand years earlier. We think our parents’ generation is out of date and irrelevant to ours.

The summer I wrote this book was one of the wettest summers New Mexico had ever seen. Someone told me we have had ten times the annual average rainfall and the year is only half over. We have also had cooler weather and we did not have our characteristic winds this spring. (Those pictures you see of the dust blowing and tumbleweeds as tall as a car are true!) The weathermen’s explanation is that there is a spot in the Pacific Ocean down near South America that is suddenly warmed for some reason. And this warm spot in the ocean is causing record rain, cool temperature and no wind in New Mexico. My daddy told me it also caused a drought in the Philippines. This world illustrates the connectedness that is part of social networks as well.

That is why phenomenon like homosexuality tend to clump together. It is not just that the gay people find each other; they tend to “reproduce” their lifestyle. If you grew up in a community where everyone was gay there is some likelihood that you would be gay yourself.

The divorce rate is high, in part, because the divorce rate is high. In the back of everyone’s mind is the possibility that they could get a divorce. This idea is put there because nearly everyone has some friends or family who have been through a divorce. Everyone is doing it. So, when my marriage goes through the white water, divorce is not the unthinkable.

When Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem was in trouble, he knew that he was in trouble. He did not think, “That is their problem.” He realized he was connected. The prayers of the Bible generally have this connected perspective.

People who enjoy God realize that they are connected to a family, a church, a community, and a world around them. They do not look at starving children in Africa and say, “That is your problem.” Rather they pray something like this, “Oh God who loves orphans and widows and who has always been the champion of the downtrodden, we realize your word teaches that we are stewards of the earth. We are not doing a very good job with our stewardship. Those hungry children are evidence of our lack of care for this world you have placed in our care. Rescue us from this famine. Bring rain…”

People who enjoy God are concerned about spiritual awakening. Their hearts hunger for a world-wide revival of joy in God. They feel their connectedness with this world and long to see people around them enjoying God as well. They are not smug. You will never find a person who enjoys God secretly, proud of his joy and glad that others have not discovered his secret. Rather people who enjoy God seem to want everyone to share the joy.