More love through prayer

NEW TEACHING. Unit 2 - More Love

More Love through Prayer

Sr Nancy Kellar

Sr Nancy Kellar S.C. continues with the second of her teaching outlines for talks for Prayer Groups on growing in love and being empowered in the Holy Spirit. Taken from her book "There is always more: Expecting new Fire"

" You have not chosen me, I have chosen you " John 15v.l6

Goals:
1 To come to a deeper knowledge of God's love through growth in prayer.
2 To recognize and overcome difficulties in prayer.

Framing Story: A little boy stood by the side of a railroad track waving a little red flag. A curious onlooker inquired why he was doing that. The little boy answered that the big locomotive train stopped when he waved his little red flag. The onlooker discouraged him saying. No, it wouldn 't stop because there was no station; but the little boy persisted. As the train approached it slowed down and came to a stop while the motorman reached, down, picked up the little boy, and drew him to his lap. The onlooker stood gazing in amazement when the boy pointed to the motorman and called out the window, " He's my Daddy "

Key Point: Prayer is allowing God to reach down and draw us to Himself. It is God's initiative of love planted in the heart of every human being in his or her mother's womb. St. Augustine said, " You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

A. Be Available to the Father's Recreating love

1. God's love is personal and we need to be available.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you came to birth, I consecrated you. (Jer. 1: 5)

a. We need to believe He calls us each by name.
"I am the Good Shepherd I know my own, I call each by name "(Jn. 10: 14)

b. We need to surrender to the power of that call to change us, to heal us.
- The apostles left everything when they heard Him call their name. (Mt.4: 18-22)
- Lazarus came out of the tomb when Jesus called his name. (Jn. 11:44)
- Mary recognized Him at the tomb when she heard him call her name. (Jn.20: 16)

2. Obstacles to the experience of being personally loved in prayer

a. Failure to be still
Paul prays for "strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and depth, of the love of Christ" (Eph 3:16).
- Why does Paul pray for strength to grasp God's love? It takes strength to be still, to stop running, even doing good things for God!
- It is the strength St. Peter needed at the Last Supper when Jesus bent to wash his feet. Peter was ready to do anything for Jesus at that moment. However Jesus asked him simply to be still and let himself be loved.
- Peter protested because it takes strength to be still to let the Lord Jesus love us.

b. Failure to expect Him to call us by name.
" She had heard about Jesus and came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak"(Mk. 5:27) The woman with the hemorrhage was content to stay in the crowd, to simply touch the hem of Jesus' garment. He was on the way to the house of an important official of the synagogue. She believed He could heal her; but she did not think she was important enough for Him to stop just for her.
- We can be like that woman saying, T believe He loves US but I don't believe I'm important enough for him to love ME, so I'll take a little bit left over from all those really good people or important people that He loves.'
- As He did for that woman, Jesus calls us out of the crowd. He calls us by name and pours out His healing love on us.

3. Being available also means taking time for prayer
" Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus "(Jn. 12:3) Jesus praised the generosity of Mary Magdalene for giving her best ointment.

In human relationships if we expect them to grow into friendships we need to move from spontaneous, periodic meetings to appointments and regular communication. The same is true in developing our relationship with God in prayer.

a. Prime time. As we look for a suitable time to pray, we ought to bear in mind that the best time, not left over time, belongs to the Lord. Emergencies do arise that can cancel our prayer time. We can compensate for those times by having a 'back up time' later in the day.

b. The Right time. How much time should we reserve for prayer? When we are new to prayer it is better to select a short time, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes. Then as we learn to pray and feel more comfortable praying, we can extend the period until we reach a length that's right for us. The most important point is to choose a reasonable length of time and stick to it.

c. The right place, a place where we can have some privacy and won't be interrupted is desirable, sometimes essential.
- A family man' with 13 children was sure there was no quiet place for prayer in his house. The Lord showed him a place behind the furnace that the children didn't know about!
"Those who are moved by the Spirit are sons and daughters of God" (Rom.8: 15)

Are we taking time for prayer and allowing ourselves to hear him say ' you are my beloved daughter, you are my beloved son?"

B. Be Vulnerable To Jesus' Healing love

1. God's love is unconditional and we need to be vulnerable
" While the son was still a long way off the father ran to him" (Lk. 15:11-21)
The story of the prodigal son is Jesus' revelation of the Father's unconditional love for us. The Father's love is a free gift that we can't earn, that we don't deserve, that doesn't diminish with our unfaithfulness.

a. Scripture has been called God's love story of wooing and pursuing his people.
- In Hosea God gives us the image of the faithful husband going after his unfaithful wife again and again.
- In Isaiah 49 God uses the image of a mother's love, "Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you "(Is.49: 15)

b. Jesus is so anxious for us to believe the Father's unconditional love He gives us many images.
-From nature - the image of the mother hen who gathers her chicks under her wing (Mt. 23:37), of the Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep (Lk. 15:4).
- From life - the lost coin and the treasure hidden in the field. (Lk. 15:8)

c. Ultimately Jesus gives His own life to reveal the Father's unconditional love
" You could hardly find anyone ready to die even for someone upright; though it is just possible that, for a really good person, someone might undertake to die." (Rom. 5:7)

2. Obstacles to knowing more deeply his unconditional love through prayer
" This people's heart is torpid, their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight, to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, using their heart to understand, changing their ways and being healed by me."(Acts 28:27)

a. We have a pagan image of God as the avenging judge.
- We make God's love like our own. Our capacity for faithfulness is so limited; we presume God's love is like ours.

b. We experience our sin and say God couldn 't love me anymore.
- We put ourselves under condemnation. We refuse God's life changing mercy.

c. We want to avoid painful questions. If we allow God to get too close, will we have to change?
- Like the woman at the well (John. 4:11) who changed subject when Jesus began to reveal He knew her life and sins.

3. Being vulnerable in prayer is being real before Him with no masks.
" Now Martha, who was distracted with all the serving, came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me." (k 10: 40).
Martha, Mary and Lazarus acknowledged Jesus as Lord, but their friendship was intimate enough to involve Him in their family argument! God meets us where we are, so we need to be where we are, or we won't meet God.

a. We need to come with our sin, neither condemning nor acquitting ourselves. (1 Cor 4: 3-5)

b. We need to come with our troubles, even when they seem so insignificant we persuade ourselves that God's love does not extend to this or that facet of our lives.
-"I pour out my worry in His presence, in His presence I unfold my troubles". (Ps. 142:2 )

c. We need to come with our distractions and make them our prayer because that is where God will meet us.

d. We need to come with our sickness and be sick with him. A parent is most attentive to the child that is sick.
" Jesus said, this sickness will not end in death, but it is for God's glory so that through it the Son of God may be glorified." (Jn. 11:4)

Are we being vulnerable with God in prayer or are we hiding our real selves from Him?

C. Be Expectant of the Spirit' Sanctifying love

1. God's Love is everlasting and unlimited and we need to be expectant.
" For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life."(John 3:16)

The Father gives his Son and the Son gives His own life to reveal the Father's unlimited love.
- Any act of our infinite God could have saved us; but He chose the ignominious death on the cross because He knew what speaks to us most of one person's love for another, is that he/she would lay down his/her life for another.
- The church has raised up to sainthood Maxmillian Kolbe because he made the sacrifice of his life for another.

2. Trials can be obstacles to our knowing God's unlimited love in prayer
"Can anything cut us off from the love of Christ-can hardships or distress, or persecution, or lack of food and clothing, or threats or violence?" (Rom. 8:35)

In His unlimited love God is always turned towards us even when we don't experience it. However, we can let trouble separate us from God. We say, "How could a loving God let this happen".
- In her book " The Hiding Place" Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of her family who were imprisoned for helping Jews during WWII. They tried to read the Word to the other inmates but it was too difficult because the guards kept coming in and out. Then the barracks became infested with lice. Their first reaction was, " God, what more can happen!" Then they realized the blessing of the lice. The guards no longer came into the barracks and it became a house of prayer preparing people for their deaths. Corrie's sister, who died in the camp said, " tell the world there is no pit so deep that his love is not deeper still"
- Jesus never promised there would be no wilderness He promised to be a path in the wilderness

3. Being expectantly open to the Spirit in prayer means including specific elements in our prayer.

a. Worship, spontaneous praise in Jesus' name, praise in song and with the gift of tongues, lifts our hearts up to God.
-" Let us go into His dwelling-place, and worship at His footstool. (Ps. 132:7)

b. Reading Scripture with readings of the day's liturgy, spontaneous opening to Scripture, using a scripture guide to prayer can help raise our minds to God.
- We need to listen to the Word asking, " Lord what are you saying?"
-" What are you saying to me?" Let the Word move us to love for the Lord, to root out sin, and to overcome the obstacles in us to a deeper prayer life.

c. Intercession, as we end our prayer focuses us outward in service to Church and World
-"I urge then, first of all that petitions, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving should be offered for everyone (1 Tim 2:1).
Are we willing to come with expectant faith to let Him set us free of these obstacles to knowing his unconditional love?

Conclusion:
Mary is our model of the attitudes we need to grow in love through prayer. Her AVE was:
She was Available - waiting in prayer to hear Word of God. (Lk.l:28)
She was Vulnerable - she asked the question in her mind: " how can this be, I am a virgin?"(Lk. 1:34)
She was Expectant "Blessed is she who believed the promise made to her by God would be fulfilled" (Lk 1:35)

Questions for discussion.

1. What truth of God's love do you need to let the Holy Spirit reveal to you?
2. What obstacles to experiencing His love in prayer do you need the Holy Spirit to remove?
3. What choices do you need to make in your prayer so that the Holy Spirit can release His power in your prayer in a new way?

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