SPEAKER_01 0:26

All right, welcome to Monday Morning Men. We are here on a Tuesday morning.

The Mission: From Information to Application

Why Prayer? (And Why Men Struggle With It)

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Do you think we'll give an account for that one day? You kept saying Monday morning men. It was a Tuesday. Yeah, I know. Well, we're just well prepared. I'd like to just note that we're both wearing the exact same outfit. Are we the same? Oh wait. I'm just I'm just making a joke. Just the fact that everybody just records multiple sessions. Like it's always the same outfit. We all know how the game is working. I changed. I took my sweatshirt off. I appreciate that. I did not. Oh gosh. Okay. Go for it. All right. I'm going to start over. You can. I think just so for the record, though, the more relaxed the environment is, the more men will listen personally. I would I like that kind of stuff. Okay. Fair enough. Sometimes we'll keep going. We can keep going.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Okay. Our goal with this podcast is to give men practical advice for them to bridge the gap between the pulpit or the pews or the altar and Monday morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I was thinking Monday to Tuesday, but not. Monday to Tuesday. No, but hopefully it's something that lasts. It's to bridge the information that we're giving, right? That we're receiving every either hopefully on a Sunday at our Bible-believing, God-willing church or whether you're listening to something online and then applying it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Walking it out and walking it away. Let's do it. Uh our topic this Monday is prayer. Yeah. Thomas, why don't you just kick us off?

SPEAKER_00 1:58

I I I when thinking about uh what I wanted to start off with, like I had mentioned even in the introductory um portion, this is not I'm not necessarily building on something. That being said, I think this topic is one that when you think of practical Christianity is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. I also mentioned that before that we are not probably giving you information that you do not already know. But I'm willing to bet that this is something that most men struggle with. Like the reality is like you may know you need to pray, you may have this idea behind prayer, you may say a few prayers, but it's one of those things that I just even personally speaking, it's it's a struggle. And I think men in general um struggle with it. So I thought two reasons that it would just be a great kind of topic. One, one is because this has been birthed in a lot of prayer. So I'm super grateful how God's led me on this journey. So it's fresh in my mind. But two, I think deep down this is something that if we're honest, and I want to challenge, I want this, I want this subject to rub memorall just a little bit because it's like, oh my gosh, I, you know, I do understand that I need to pray, and you think you know the subject. Now I'm I would like to see you apply it, which is ultimately the goal. I'm not trying to impress you with my information, my revelation, or what God's showing me. I would like you to see you do it. Like it's that simple.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, and even uh from a biblical standpoint, the disciples who spent the most time with Jesus, even though he performed all these miracles and everything, the one thing that they asked him to teach them how to do was pray. Did you look at my notes?

The Real Reason Prayer Feels So Hard

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Did I look at your notes? Because that really bothers me that you said that. No, I'm just messed up. I'm just messed up. No, I'm just messed up. That is, well, no, that's exactly right. It's Luke, it's Luke 11, right? It's Luke 11, 1 through 4, which is our actual passage for today, because I agree with you. Um and I'll read it in just a second, but my thought behind it, and this is kind of why I thought prayer would be so good, I have a theory that when they ask Jesus how to pray, which a lot of pastors talk about, you know, they he never asked them how to preach, you only asked them how to pray. And that and I believe that that kind of idea, like God really cares about it. There's this emphasis on prayer. But Jews during that time prayed a minimum of three times a day, like an actual structured time, which is why we pray at every meal. Like this is a tradition. Prayer was not something, it was not a new thing Jesus was doing. Uh, John the Baptist was known for his prayers, right? Even in that context of that scripture. Praying was something that they had seen, they had had it, you know, practiced, and yet they asked Jesus. And some people think it's because Jesus prayed in a completely different manner, which I would I would probably assume so. Here he has this connection with the Father. I don't know. It's just a narrative. There's not really a lot that we can glean as far as what we actually know. But my theory is this I think they asked him to pray because everything else, practically speaking, that Jesus was teaching made sense. This is one that doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah.

Breaking Down the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11)

3 Things Blocking Your Prayer Life

What Real Prayer Actually Looks Like (Psalms)

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Because in reality, it's like, okay, if I do, you know, good things, I earn rewards in heaven, right? Because we're practical beings, men are practical creatures. We like to know the steps and the processes that we're to kind of like walk out. It makes sense. Walk in obedience, receive the reward. Prayer does not do anything. We're not doing good for anybody. We're we're talking to the air in our mind. It's it kind of just challenges a lot of things. So my theory behind it is that they were like, why? Yeah. Everything else you said, you know, give my cloak to someone else, love my neighbor, right? Be faithful, don't commit adultery, don't hate. Like everything else makes sense, but this one doesn't. Um, so that's kind of my theory behind the prayer, Brett, the idea of why they wanted to know what Jesus was doing. It's interesting. So just kind of a theory. But on that, let's let's at least read. You know, ultimately, we want scripture to be kind of our focal point, not just all of our information and our opinion. So we will at least read that. And I would encourage anybody listening, read ultimately this entire chapter. But uh 11, 1 through 11 is kind of the it's the go passage that a lot of great books, uh, Charles Spurgeon's The Power of Prayer is, you know, based out of. There's lots of good things, and it's mostly out of this chapter. But we'll just do one through four. Now it came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he ceased that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our day, our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for as we forgive everyone who's indebted to us, and do not lead us in temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Um I love that this is a short, sweet prayer. But it said that when he had ceased praying, meaning it sounded like it was a longer period of time. So this is not, you know, a a quick 13-second prayer, as everybody calls it, is not the example he's setting. He's just allowing us the things that God ultimately wants to see in our prayers. Um and I think it's amazing too that he goes on later in those chapters, which is why I encourage everybody to read it, is the heart of the father behind you know what he's thinking and processing as we pray to him. That we get to walk in a place of not only acceptance, but a desire to hear our prayers, the desire to hear our needs. Uh, so that that is why it's a beautiful ultimately, we could delve into this topic for a while, but to kind of spearhead to ultimately get to where I want to go. There are three things that I think men struggle with with when it comes to prayer. Um, but three things that could be really fruitful in our life, which is what we're chasing, to have fruit filled lives that are practically applying what God wants us to do. So I'm not gonna give three things that are that we struggle with and three, you know, fruitful things. I'm just gonna kind of tie them together and go from there. But the the first one is this is prayer challenges our pride. But what it does is when it challenges our pride, it replaces us with our reliance on God. So for men, I think one of the biggest struggles is that ultimately we just don't need God. I mean, the reality is, especially in our American dream, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you've got this, make something up for yourself. You live in the land of opportunity. That is ultimately pride, which is why I think our prayer lives struggle. And I mean, if you're honest and you're listening to this, ask yourself, why is my prayer life struggling? Most people that are kind of going through it, that are true believers, usually don't have an issue praying. They need Jesus. It's the ones where things are going well that it becomes a problem. In fact, I think that if we truly understood that God wants us to rely on him, we would probably approach even our trials a little bit different. But one thing just to note, there is only one thing that hinders our prayers, and that's our pride. Like even in Corinthians, where it talks about loving your wife, so your prayers are not hindered, is ultimately a pride and a selfishness, right? Our pride is what keeps us from God, and he wants us to lean and rely on everything. You know, James 4 6 says that he resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. All it requires is humility. It doesn't even matter what sin is in your life. If you're willing to repent and you're open and you're humble about it, he's right there. So one of the things that ultimately it hinders us is our pride, and that that's problematic, and that's ultimately why I think people struggle with their pride, especially men. But it teaches us our reliance on God, which is ultimately what I would love to see us all kind of do, especially in a world where it's just like, I personally think I've got this. And then what a great thing for men to learn right away. Like, no, we're gonna rely on Jesus for everything. Yeah. And we'll get into kind of some of those applications and different things like that. But I do want to just kind of notate this Jesus, right? Who we're who we're emulating in everything that we do, right? Jesus before going to the cross, pray, right? Jesus before we're even going out to Gethsemane, pray, right? This is who he is. This is an at you know, attitude of prayer. I have, I don't know, you've probably seen that video, and I've shared this before, but uh, I think it's um Jocko, that guy, that like Navy SEAL, right? And every man, like when you listen to that stuff, you're just like, man, I want to run through a freaking wall. Like he just he's this guy. But I think he has that video where he talks about, I think it's him that talks about he gets up at like 4 a.m. basically to put himself ahead of everybody else. Um, I don't know who he's trying to get ahead of. Like, I'll just let him get ahead of me. I don't care. I don't know who he's trying, I don't know who he's racing, what neighbors he's racing. But no, this point that I love, Martin Luther, one of the great reformers of our time, said that whenever he had something that he knew was important the next day, he would get up two hours early. He too wanted to get it ahead, get ahead, but it wasn't getting ahead of his peers or anything. He said he would get up two hours earlier to pray. Like, what if we had that reliance on God? We removed our pride and we're like, I don't even care what tomorrow holds. It's not within my power or my control. I want to just simply pray. Yeah. So pride, that's ultimately one of the things that I think hinders us. Um the the second thing that prayer challenges us is our beliefs, our belief system, and it increases our faith and obedience. When we rely on God, we get the opportunity to see Him work. Uh, this is kind of one of those ideas that, like I said, not super, you know, this is not, I'm probably not providing some crazy revelation for you. You ultimately know this, but really ask yourself, what's your belief system? Because if you truly believed it, you would do it. And I think this is not, we're gonna get to some application in a minute, but I wanted to share this story. And I told you I would love to share stories about my dad as much as possible. Because when you can see it practically laid out in your life and someone going before you, which is why it's important to have community and men around you, it kind of increases your belief system and it helps you grow in that. We were dirt poor growing up. And mom and dad, if you're hearing this, I mean I we were dirt poor. Like I had a great childhood, I'm grateful for it, but we were poor. And my mom, uh, for reasons that the Lord only knows, decided to have a few of my siblings at home. And so we would have to like buy all the stuff in order to prepare for uh for the birth of one of you know my brothers or sisters. And so one of those times we had to go to Walmart and we spent like, I remember it being a couple hundred dollars, which now is just a normal Harris T to run, but it was a couple, it was a couple hundred dollars in order to prepare. And so they bought everything and put it in the back of the truck, and on the way home, no idea what happened, everything flew out, which is crazy. Like, I have no idea. And what I love about this, and this is where this is where being a dad and and and you get every opportunity to teach a lesson. My dad came out, he wasn't upset. I would have been super upset. He wasn't upset. He goes, Well, we're gonna pray that God provides because we can't afford it. And he's like, and then he said, you know what? I saw some good deals at Walmart, and everything that we save with coupons will tally it up and see if it ultimately ends up being that same amount. So we prayed. I'm sitting here thinking, you want to see God's faithfulness in coupons? But this is a man that believed not only in the power of prayer, but he believed God can respond and answer that prayer in ways that we may not fully understand. Yeah. And he was willing to do that with coupons and deals. And so for like a few days, my dad is, hey, this is the deal. I normally would pay this, and this is what I'm saving. And I remember thinking, man, he he was so adamant he wanted to see God's faithfulness and what his, you know, his request was. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, this is the craziest thing I've ever, you know, like this is nuts. And then three days later he came to us and goes, Well, someone from the church found out what happened, and they just said, How much was it? And they paid for everything. Wow. And so I appreciated his faithfulness to pray, faithfulness to look for God's answer in any way, but then to actually see God fulfill it in a more convenient way, strengthen my faith. Yeah. Right? That's cool. Colossians 4, 2 says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in Thanksgiving. We are to continue to pray, no matter what our circumstances is, even though it was bad for my dad, we're gonna pray. And then we're gonna be watchful for how God's gonna answer it. And it says Jeremiah 33, 3 says, Call to me and I will answer you and tell the great, unsearchable things you do not know. The answer to our problems and our questions, he's gonna answer in ways that we can't begin to comprehend. The last thing that prayer challenges is our vulnerability and it helps develop our intimacy with God. Few things men struggle with. We've got it. We're prideful, right? We like to see things. Like when Thomas is like, I need to stick my hands in his side. I mean, I don't want to stick my hands inside, it's a little bit graphic, but there's a part of me that's like, I can relate. I want to see it, I don't believe you. And then the third thing is that we struggle with intimacy and vulnerability. We just do. But prayer challenges that. If you want to know what true prayer look, like a prayer lifestyle looks like looks like, it's obviously the Psalms. I mean, David seems erratic, bipolar at times, but you're seeing him lamenting or woe is me, but you also see him praying, right? So when we look at a man who's ultimately emulating God's heart, a man after God's own heart, that's what a prayer lifestyle looks like. Plus, it should be extremely real. Matthew 6, 7 says this. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words. I mean, a great way to translate that is God wants your intimate heart thought process, desires, not you just making stuff up. Yeah. Which is why I think ultimately disciples said, Teach us how to pray. Yeah. Because we've heard the emptiness, we've seen the tradition of it, but for whatever reason, this practical Christianity that's intimate and vulnerable, we don't fully understand because I think there were 12 blue-collar dudes that were just like, What is this? But those are three things that I think prayer challenges us on, and three things that ultimately helps us grow in.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So for the people that are listening to this that can resonate with those feelings of like, hey, that maybe my pride or my lack of belief or afraid of being vulnerable is getting in the way of a deeper prayer life. How what's one way for them to walk this out practically to deepen that prayer life?

Tools: Using a Prayer Journal

SPEAKER_00 16:05

There's numerous ways that we can kind of practically walk this out. Uh, it depends. I think I think one of the ways that you can do this, obviously, you should practicing bright by yourself is the best thing. Whatever's on your heart and in your mind, as basic as that sounds, pray it out, right? That's a that's a beautiful way to do it. If you really want to stretch yourself, and I encourage everybody to do this, this is something that I am currently trying to practice more in, because I have not been as faithful as I should be, but it's consistent praying with my wife. And if you're praying with your wife, first of all, your wife's gonna pray exactly what's going on in the family and what needs to happen, and it's gonna push you to do it. So if you're married, I think praying with your wife is gonna help you with that vulnerability aspect. So that's one way you can apply it right now. For the next week, pray with your wife every single day. Um, and then if you're not, or or even if you are married, just simply uh being vulnerable in your prayer life and open and honest with God that you can do. I I always tell people too, and and which is ironic, but I always say exchange the podcast for prayer instead of just listening to something in the car all the time, or music, or some sort of even if it's something that's educational or helping you, take that time to pray. Because if we truly believe in the power of prayer and our belief system is changing, then we'll take that to pray. Yeah, it's good stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Any other tools that you use to just keep your prayer life uh regimented?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Yeah. Uh that that yeah, that's a great question because I tools is a good word because sometimes it's like, well, I'll just continue just to walk in prayer, but but having practical uh ideas is is an ideal one. I have a buddy of mine that um he he was one that encouraged me to have a prayer journal. I don't write my prayer, some people do, and that's great. Um, but I write it down because of a couple reasons. One, when someone asks you to pray, if you truly believe in it and you believe in the power, let's just be real. Sometimes two reasons we don't pray, we get busy, or two, we're just like, yeah, I don't think God's gonna heal your grandpa. And that's super sad, but that's ultimately we're just like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Yeah.

Tracking Answered Prayers (George Mueller Example)

Are You Treating God Like a Vending Machine?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

You know, it's just like, I don't believe in it. If you have a prayer journal, you can write the name of that individual down so that every day you're going before the throne of God. It teaches us to not only pray and have the consistency of that prayer and that practical, you know, advice of just write it down, read it, pray it, believe it. Um, so having a prayer journal where you're able to write down your requests. And then ultimately, I think my favorite to have a prayer journal, and again, I don't write down my prayers, but uh writing down my requests, my favorite character of all time, as far as like probably in Christian history would be George Mueller, recent history, 1800s, but he uh he always had a prayer journal. And he says that he estimates about 55,000 prayers were answered in his lifetime. And the reason he can actually come up with that number is he would write his request on one page and he would keep the other page empty. And then when God would answer it, he would come back and he would write it down. This was a man who believed in not only the power of prayer, prayer, but he wanted to grow his faith. This is kind of one of the iconic, you know, men in our Christian walk and our Christian history that understood the practical way of walking out prayer. So a prayer journal is a yeah, like an ideal way.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

How does how does somebody just stay um keep their prayer life to where it's not just something where they're treating God as like a vending machine? Because I I feel like the the struggle may be like you only come before the Lord in prayer when you need something. Right. How do you how do you like have that discipline to do it when you don't feel like it? Like do you have frameworks that you use? Like what's some practical advice for guys?

Simple Prayer Frameworks (ACTS Method)

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Yeah, solid. I I think I think it for me it's uh at what point are you done listening to your kids ask for things? And I'm not talking about grocery store, can I have candy? I'm talking about dad, can you help me with this? Or dad, can you come play with me? At no point, at least in and I would probably argue most fathers are never tired of hearing that. And if we continue to read in Luke, like he wants us to approach for need because what that shows is that vulnerability of reliance. So while he's not a vending machine, just to give us our every, you know, whimsy and desire, um, he is there to provide if we truly view him as that way. If we grow though in our prayer life, as your child grows, right? They still may ask for things or need things from you. I asked my mom to watch my kids, right? But there comes a point where that starts to shift and it's a more of a relational, I'm grateful for you, I'm thankful for you. And ultimately, if we believe, right, and and that we're to enter in with Thanksgiving on our heart, there's a framework God gave us in ultimately our prayer life of what we should ultimately be praying. So even if you take Luke chapter 11 and you just write down the few things that it's repentance, it's thanksgiving, things that you can pray for, write it down in your prayer journal and go over a few of those things. You can make it that simple. There's no we're we're not empty words, we're not trying to conjure up something, right? This is not the way God operates. It conjure up a prayer that's acceptable. It's literally going before him all the time that that we believe in that power, that prayer.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Yeah. One of the things that's been super helpful for me is just the ACE acronym where it's adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Amen. And just giving a little bit of structure to my prayer. And that's not something where it's religious, where I'm like, it has to be this case every time. But at least for my morning prayer time, I know that I'm I'm touching on all these things. Like I'm spending time adoring the Lord and reminding myself of his attributes, like who he is, and then uh confessing. Like I I'm not perfect, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah.

Why Men Struggle With Expressive Prayer

SPEAKER_01 21:38

And there's often times where there's things that are brought to my attention in that time of of confessing and then spending some time thanking the Lord for for uh certain things that are going on, good, bad, all of it. You know, thanking him for who he is. Thank you for his kindness that I that I woke up this morning, that I've got breath in my lungs. Amen. Um, and then you know, the last part of that is then supplication, it's crying out to the Lord for certain issues, things that are going on, asking for wisdom in my business, whatever it is, family issues, that kind of stuff.

Final Challenge: Just Start

SPEAKER_00 22:08

That's amazing. Yeah, I think those are all amazing suggestions. I think that the the quicker we can chase to just the the where our heart is at and then apply those things, that is like the I say the perfect prayer. It's not, it's who we are and it's what he's desiring. Uh just two last thoughts. You have me thinking that I think are really important. Timothy talks about lifting up our hands in prayer, right? Men don't like doing that thing. We don't like to worship. We don't like to be expressive, which is ironic because when it comes to closing a business deal or our football team, we have no problem cheering or pumping our fist. Yeah. But when it comes to prayer, we just because it's intimate and it's vulnerable. Um doing something that you know that may be a hard thing. I mean, Timothy is not a suggestion. Like I mean, he says lift up. It's kind of this command, lift your hands up in holy prayer. That if we're approaching it where we're wanting to be vulnerable and intimate, that as we and we follow, you know, either the axe model, whatever you're kind of doing to apply that, there's going to be so much breakthrough and power in that. And one of the ways that I personally have seen that in my prayer journal, I I I guess and I've told people this before, I'm like, I hope nobody gets a hold of it because I have names in there of people I don't I struggle with that maybe I don't like, that I'm dealing with something and it's hard, but it's where I'm at and it's vulnerable. And I pray for them. And in that, like even in that Timothy passage, it says to not do so in anger and quarrelsome spirit. There's this idea that it helps me walk in forgiveness and freedom, and it's vulnerable. Yeah, this is the stuff that we should be doing as men. You want to grow in your your Christian walk with Jesus? Literally start to pray. This is the thing that you can do wherever you are. You don't have to pull out the scriptures, you don't have to open a Bible, be in a quiet, you can pray in the middle of the mall or whatever you're doing. This is such an easy one to start to apply right now. All you have to do is do it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Okay. So what is the zero to one step for somebody who wants to improve upon their prayer life? Start practically applying it more. What would be the first step?

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Turn this off and start praying. Literally, what comes to mind? God's big enough to handle it. God's not sitting there going, I mean, he already thinks that you know his ways are higher than ours. We're sheep. It's not like he's expecting you. This is not a well-formed prayer we're just casting up. I mean, we are going before the throne of God, so we approach it with reverence, but just literally start to do it. That's the idea. And that's why I'm hoping that this conversation maybe even kind of rubs you the wrong way. Just start to do it right now. Good stuff. And with that, we'll close. I like it. All right. Next week. We'll see you next week.