Learning to Pray and Offer Yourself to God
To you, O Lord , I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.
Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
Make me to know your ways, O Lord ; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.’
Psalms 25:1–5 ESV Read More
I was out with a friend doing street evangelism once and I heard him teach a high school kid cruising Greenriver Road how to pray. He didn’t know it, but he taught me how to pray at the same time! He said, “If you don’t know what to pray, start praying the way Jesus told us to pray, with the Lord’s Prayer, then after a while, move on and pray some of the Psalms.” Psalm 25 and 27 are some of the Psalms he recommended.
More than advancing armies or ‘enemies,’ nowadays our main fear is from shame. Our reputation or our name is our most valuable asset as we show off around town, work our way up the corporate ladder, or try to impress the people in the car/cubicle/aisle/elliptical/building/church next to us. That simple one sentence prayer at the beginning covers so much.
O my God, in you I trust; Let me not be put to shame.
That is also a terribly dangerous prayer if you want to be selfish and independent from God. If you trust God and depend on Him for honor and shame, you might go to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, or Friedman Park to carry His Gospel to people that haven’t heard it. When you depend on God for your honor and shame, you travel by a very different map.
If your goal is to follow God as He shows you His path, you will always make it to where He is, which is where He wants you to be.
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