Prayer and the Devil

The following quote is from an article entitled What the Devil Fears by Sarah Elias Foulkes (Charisma Online).

The devil fears nothing like prayer. He knows that if he can break our communication with God, he has cut us off from all power. Hence, he sentinels the gateway of prayer with his seducing agents. He deadens the spiritual sensibilities,  hatches excuses, makes evasions in the mind, causes us to suddenly grow dull and drowsy and indolent, and in a thousand other ways he works untiringly to keep us from getting hold of God in earnest prayer.

                

He engineers strange circumstances to keep us from our knees. He incites a false zeal and, in a multitude of church activities, crowds out prayer. To the degree that he succeeds in causing us to neglect prayer, he has won the day. Our victory comes in arousing and stirring up all the faculties of taking hold of God in the combats of prayer.

On the Discipline of Silence

Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. (Proverbs 8:34)

In the above verse, the Wisdom of God cries out to be heard and promises a blessing on the one who will stop long enough to listen.  So it is in prayer.  If we are to gain any wisdom, insight, or word from the Lord, we must listen.  But to often our prayers consist of a litany of words and petitions with barely a breath taken to pause and wait upon the Lord.  The Lord himself observed in Matthew 6:7b, “they think that they will be heard for their many words.”  And so it is that many think that prayer is a one way dialogue: we speak, God listens.

Prayer, however, out not to be one way street.  And it is most certainly out not to be seen as a drive-through window service.  Rather, real prayer is a relationship.  It is communion with God.  It ought to be a conversation between Father and son or Father and daughter. 

But how does one cultivate such a dialogue in prayer?  How do we move into the sweet communion prayer ought to be between us and our heavenly Father?  The key, I contend, is the practice of silence.

About a year ago in prayer, I stumbled upon something in my prayer book I had not really given much thought.  In every instance in the various forms of the Prayers of the People (Book of Common Prayer, 383-393) and the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, 36-140), silence is to be observed.  What is more, in many instances silence is to be observed before we begin making our personal petitions.  It is not that I had not seen this before, but I think I saw it more as a pious act of devotion rather than for its true intent: to give God a chance to speak to me.  In most conversations between people, the protocol is to take turns speaking.  I speak and then wait for your response or input.  It is both courteous and a sign of a healthy conversation.  In the prayer book, silence is to be observed to allow for just such a healthy conversation with God.

How many times have you been with someone who dominated the conversation and who did not need to hear what you had to say?  In such instances, we can’t wait to get away from such a person or (dare I say it?) for them to shut-up.  But while we may find such a person intolerable, do we not do the same to our Lord?  We run into prayer, drop our list of wants and demands, say a few thanksgivings and a few “alleluias”, and then drop a quick “amen” and we are out of there.  Our duty done?  Yes, but no word from the Lord.

So what is my point?  God is waiting to speak if we will but take time to listen.  For prayer to be all that we would desire it to be i.e., a time of intimate communion with God, we need to cultivate the discipline of silence.  Take time to pause in prayer and simply sit in silence.  Listen.  It is only in the silence, can we truly discern the “still small voice” of our Savior who desires to speak to clearly to our hearts.