Prayer: How Prayer Reflects Our Spiritual Phase

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

Revelation 5:13

Let’s be honest. When the bills are stacking up and the customers (or kids) are complaining, it’s a bit difficult to pray prayers of deeply felt gratitude and adoration to God. Yet, our ultimate destiny in heaven is just that: “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’”

One obvious question is, of course, how are we to pray in the meantime? And why do more mature Christians seem to pray differently than we do?

Our prayers reflect the state or condition of our spirit. They are a proxy statement for the predisposition of our mind. The tendencies of our prayers reflect which phase of spiritual life we occupy. Are your prayers along the line, “Lord, give me…?” Or is the tenor of your prayers more, “Lord, make me…?” Or do your prayers tend to come out, “Lord, thank You…?” These three approaches to prayer provide the essential clue to which phase of spiritual life we are in.

In our maturing as a Christian, we pass through three distinct phases. What are they? And how do they manifest in our prayer life?

The Spirit of Need

We are needy people. When God found us, we were consumed with needs: relational, emotional, financial, moral, psychological, and spiritual needs. We are needy because we are unable to manage our lives without God’s wisdom and guidance.

It seems quite natural, then, that until our temporal lives begin to straighten out, temporal needs would preoccupy our early prayers. The distinctive of our prayers in this first phase of our spiritual life is that they are prayers of petition. “Lord, give me…” We are babes in Christ.

But life is not static, and God does not leave us alone. We improve. Over a period of years, God begins to solve the residue of problems lingering from the old pagan life. Balance and order come.

Slowly, the selfishness of our prayers occurs to us. Our lives really were broken, and we desperately needed help. But daylight appears, there is light at the end of the tunnel of our temporal needs, and we realize all our prayers have focused only on needs.

On that day, when we are struck by how one-dimensional our prayers have been, we awaken to a second phase of spirit.

The Spirit of Surrender

After ten or twelve years of praying for myself and others, the reality that God actually answers specific prayers specifically began to dawn on me. Not overnight, but slowly, the truth of it all began to move from abstract to personal. I saw God answer my prayers. I heard of God answering my prayers. I experienced God answering my prayers, and the abstractness of it all began to fall away like huge chunks of ice from a thawing iceberg plunging into the sea.

At the same time, the shallowness of “Give me, give me, gimme,” started to grate on my spiritual sensibilities. Is there not more to prayer than needs?

When once we see the faithfulness of God to care for us, we want to learn how to follow Him. We come to that point where we want to surrender the silliness of our own ideas to the way of the Lord. Instead of praying, “Lord, give me,” we start praying, “Lord, make me.” Surrendering to the will of God becomes pre-eminent in our thinking.

During this spiritual phase, our prayers become prayers to discern the will of God, how to live more Christianly day-by-day. We still have needs, and those prayers continue, but seeking the will of God and to be made over in the image of His Son occupies center stage.

God grinds and chips and polishes the character of His disciple during the second phase of pilgrimage and puts him into useful service. Our ambition is to negotiate the terms of surrender to His will. Eventually we come upon the third phase.

The Spirit of Gratitude

The surrendered saint survives the crucibles in which full abandon and total submission are learned. The symptoms of the unsurrendered life have almost disappeared—impure thoughts, selfish ambition, wrong motives, negative attitudes. They always lurk as temptations, but they are not as alluring as they once were. This person graduates to a grateful heart.

The Christian with the spirit of gratitude finds his prayers become prayers of praise, adoration, and thanksgiving to God. “Lord thank You.” He rests on the utter dependability of God to accomplish everything He promises, whether a blessing or a threat against sin. It is the most sublime state: a full, total, complete, unequivocal, no retreat, no regrets surrender to Christ. Gladness of heart occupies his thoughts, regardless of circumstantial strains. Beams of gratitude continually shine warmth on the personal relationship with Christ.

The grateful saint still prays for needs and still seeks the will of God, but a spirit of gratitude overarches every utterance to God. Praise and adoration accompany every visit to the throne of grace.

What is the state of your spirit? Which phase are you in? God has ordained the phase of spiritual pilgrimage you are in, but you may eagerly desire a deeper life. Go farther.

The highest calling in prayer is the adoration of God. “‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’” One day this will be our exclusive prayer. In the meantime, as you pray, “Lord, give me,” and “Lord, make me,” also pray, “Lord, thank You.”

I SURRENDER

Lord, I acknowledge I demonstrate a spirit of need more than of surrender or gratitude in my prayers. I ask You to help me straighten out my life. Enable me to negotiate the terms of a full surrender to You. Grant me a spirit of gratitude. Help me to lead a fully surrendered life and to offer prayers which express my deep gratitude to You for saving me from my sins.

To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! Amen.