“My prayer life stinks. What can I do about it?”

Steve Brown:
My prayer life stinks. What can I do about it? The answer to that and other questions, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life, dedicated to the message that the only people who get any better are those who know that if they don’t get any better, God will still love them anyway. That teaching raises a lot of questions, so here’s author and seminary professor Steve Brown, along with Pete Alwinson from ForgeBibleStudy.com with answers to the Bible that’ll make you free.

Steve Brown:
Hey Pete.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey. Happy Friday.

Steve Brown:
Happy Friday to you.

Pete Alwinson:
Doing all right?

Steve Brown:
Yeah. Oh yes. Ever since I didn’t have to prepare a sermon for Sunday. I’m always happy on Friday.

Pete Alwinson:
And on top of that you, we didn’t get hit by the last hurricane.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s right. And as Churchill said, there’s nothing more exhilarating than being shot at and having missed.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, that’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s Pete Alwinson. And don’t forget to check out ForgeTruth.com you’ll be glad I told you about it. And their podcast is just dynamite, and it’s weekly, and you’ll be glad I told you about that too. Pete, as you know, comes in on Fridays, and we spend Fridays answering questions. We love your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and record your question, and sometimes we put your voice on the air. Or you can send your question to

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or you can e-mail your question to [email protected] and all of those places are places where you could, should the Spirit move, help us out financially. If you can, be as generous as you can, and we’ll be as faithful as you were in giving the gift. If you can’t, we understand that too. Do say a prayer for this ministry, and we would appreciate that. Pete, why don’t you lead us in prayer, and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright. Our Father, we come to you on this Friday, and what a joy it is to be able to call the God of the universe our Father, to be able to declare that the One who created all things knew us before the foundation of the world. To be able to lift up your name as high and holy and yet also nearby, imminent as well as transcendent. We honor you. You’re powerful and yet you have always used your power for our good. You’ve brought us into your family to enjoy the blessings of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be a part of your people. You’ve forgiven us of our sins because of the work of Christ, and we honor you. And so as forgiven children, as adopted, as deeply loved, always loved, Lord, we come into your presence. And at the end of this week, we ask that you would just prepare us to worship. Lord, we give you our, the challenges that would keep us from worship, busyness, fatigue, also just other opportunities, but get us into your presence we pray. And be with our pastors, priests, worship directors, leaders, all those that are working hard right now to bring it all together for us on Sunday. And we want to be in your presence. Be with Key Life and Lord, our producers and for Steve Brown and all those, and there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes. We thank you for how you’re touching lives, changing lives as you have always done. We give you praise in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
My question is, how can I intensify my prayers to the Lord?

Steve Brown:
You know, that’s a good question, and I think one that so many Christians ask. And what happens is, I think, and I think it’s a psychological thing, we say, you know, my prayer life is awful, it stinks, but I’m going to fix it. And so, instead of spending, just nodding in God’s direction. I’m going to set aside two hours in the morning, and I’m going to get up early, and I’m going to really spend a season of prayer. And listen to the old guy. No, you’re not. You just think you are. You’re going to get up, and you’re going to have the two hours, but after the first three minutes, you’re going to be dead as a doornail. First, you’re going to feel sleepy. And secondly, you’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer three times, and that only takes one minute and then you’ve prayed for everybody you know, and that took you another five minutes. And now you’ve got an hour and 50 minutes to just sit there and grin at God. No wonder your prayer life stinks. So, cut back your expectations.

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. I love that. I love that. And that’s just honesty, right? That’s just reality.

Steve Brown:
It’s just, it’s facing, you know, it’s a big deal for a finite, weak, sinful human being to talk to an infinite, holy God.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s a big deal.

Pete Alwinson:
Who is invisible.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, that’s right.

Pete Alwinson:
And so, I think that, you know, we need to have a system for prayer that is actually doable. And the Bible tells us start it at the beginning of the day, you know, we see the Psalm, we see the rhythm of prayer in the Psalms, morning, noon and night. And there’s a flow to it. So, if you start the conversation in the morning and then as it says in, where does Paul say it, I Thessalonians.

Pray without ceasing.

Start the conversation and continue it. And I think that’s more how God wants us to go through life rather than getting through that. Now, I’m not saying it’s not good to have a prayer list. You have one and I do too. And we ought to pray through the prayer list, but, and sometimes we spend more time praying. Sometimes I pray for the full 30, 40 minutes while I’m riding my bike.

Steve Brown:
I do too, not my bike.

Pete Alwinson:
Swimming.

Steve Brown:
Swimming.

Pete Alwinson:
Can you pray and swim? I don’t know if that’s physically.

Steve Brown:
But only for 1 or 2 laps.

Pete Alwinson:
Cause there is so much involved in that.

Steve Brown:
But, you know, there is a sense in which that flow and being regular with it. If it, you know, you ask about my swimming, my swimming is something, I don’t know if it’s doing that much good physically, but as soon as I do it, I can say I did it and I feel good about doing it and I don’t have to do it again today. That’s why Jesus gave us the prayer for his disciples. And it’s not a pattern prayer, it’s a short prayer. Because he said there are people who think that God will hear them for how many words they use. And so, he gives this little prayer that takes just seconds to pray. And he says, pray it. And if you pray it, you can say, you know, I’m good to go. I did what I was supposed to do, and then do what Pete says. When you see a magnificent sunset, don’t switch to a prayer mode.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
Just say, God, that is so cool.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
Or when you see a pretty girl, or a handsome guy, say, Lord, she’s pretty or he’s so handsome. Or when you have a hamburger that you cooked on your burner and it really is good, say, Lord, that hamburger was so good. I think I’ll have another. Those kind, that’s the praying without ceasing. It’s operating within the context of who God is, present in every item of your life.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And so, that outline of prayer, that adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication really is kind of an ongoing thing that happens all the time.

Steve Brown:
It really, you know, and it makes you sound so pious when you say you do that, but nevertheless, it’s not a super saint thing that you do. It’s just simply being aware that you’re not in this alone. You know, I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard my wife say when something good happens. Out loud. Thank you Father.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right there.

Steve Brown:
And I go, you weren’t praying. Yes, she was. That’s where she lives.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. And this is cool. Christians, evangelical Bible believers, we believe in having a personal relationship with Jesus and that’s an ongoing daily thing. All right. Let me tell you one other area there, how you can energize your prayer life, jump into a ministry where you’re over your head.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s called a scared prayer.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, but, you know, so many Christians are just so set in their ways and they’re not really, they’ve never taken, they haven’t taken a step of faith for Jesus in years.

Steve Brown:
Risk.

Pete Alwinson:
Risk. Risk something. Risk an area of growth. Risk in a ministry. Step out in faith and you will pray more.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And you hear about the man whose son, they were out in the field and a tornado came across the field and the farmer headed for the farmhouse. And he looked back and his son was on his knees praying. And he said, run son, a scared prayer ain’t worth nothing. Well, yeah, it is, a lot of scared prayers are the best prayers I ever prayed. And guys, listen, you know, we’re being humorous and kidding around, but if you will do the kinds of things we’re talking about, it’ll click and you’ll feel, you won’t be, I’m not saying you’ll join hands and sing Kumbaya by a fire with Jesus, but there’ll be a sense of his presence that is ongoing and is a part of your life. This is an e-mail. Why did God feel he needed to prove anything to Satan, especially in the expense of such a loyal servant as Job?

Pete Alwinson:
Wow. Good question. Why did he feel he needed to prove anything to Satan? Again, there’s a whole lot more going on in the cosmic realm than we know.

Steve Brown:
And he didn’t need to prove anything. When God said, have you seen my servant Job? And then all those bad things, I don’t want him to ever say, have you seen my servant, Steve? I don’t want those words.

Pete Alwinson:
Leave me alone.

Steve Brown:
I want to have enough sin so God never says to Satan, check out Steve. I don’t want to be checked out. I want to be under the radar.

Pete Alwinson:
Oh man.

Steve Brown:
But he didn’t, nothing’s going on there that God felt he had to prove anything. He was involved in something far deeper and more profound than you can possibly imagine.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah, and thinking about Job being one of the oldest books in the Bible, if not way in the Genesis time frame, it has that cosmic message too, because later on in Job, as Job’s trying to figure it out and he’s demanding of God. God says, you know, who are you to answer back to me? Come on. And so, and that has New Testament context as well. But, you know, God is sovereign and we don’t know everything that’s happening and the why. And he really doesn’t answer the problem of pain and God doesn’t have anything to prove. God can be depended upon.

Steve Brown:
That’s true. And, you know, do you sometimes just say, man, I hope that’s true. That’s an honest statement that pleases God too. Yes, in everything. You can trust him.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
That’s it.

Pete Alwinson:
Okay man.

Steve Brown:
We’ve got to get out of here. But the first thing I need to say before we go or the last thing. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.