If most of us are being honest, we likely consider prayer to be a weak point in our spiritual lives. We find it hard to make time to pray; we find it unproductive in a world obsessed with hurry and productivity; we feel guilty for not praying often enough, and yet when we finally set aside the time to do so, we find ourselves distracted or confused, not sure how to proceed. Rather than serving as a life-giving connection to a redemptive, loving, and restorative God in the midst of a broken world, prayer becomes a chore or a bore or a guilt-riddled religious game. We often find ourselves, as Jesus’ earliest disciples did, wondering how we can begin to pray. Join us as Midtown as we wade into the challenging waters of prayer, exploring the way that the Psalms teach us authentic, genuine prayer, and how their model can provide us structures for how we begin to relate to and know God more fully in our own lives today.
We live in a culture of discontent: all around us we are constantly being told that we need more or better in order to live peaceful and satisfied lives, and the result is often anxiety, worry, and fear. What can we do to experience peace-filled lives in such a world? Watch as Pastor Clint explores Psalm 103 and its solution to discontent: gratitude.
Sermon Resources:
1. "The Century of Self" documentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
2. “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.” -Paul Mazur
3. Edward Bernays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
4. “You have taken over the job of creating desire and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines, machines which have become the key to economic progress.” -Herbert Hoover, speaking to public relations experts in 1928
5. “Gratitude is the awareness that life in all its manifestations is a gift for which we want to give thanks. The closer we come to God in prayer, the more we become aware of the abundance of God’s gifts to us. We may even discover the presence of these gifts in the midst of our pains and sorrows. The mystery of the spiritual life is that many of the events, people, and situations that for a long time seemed to inhibit our way to God become ways of being united more deeply with him. What seemed a hindrance proves to be a gift. Thus gratitude becomes a quality of our hearts that allows us to live joyfully and peacefully even though our struggles continue.” -Henri Nouwen
6. “Now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.” -John Steinbeck, East of Eden
7. “In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
8. “To be a saint (read, a Christian) is to be fueled by gratitude, nothing less. Gratitude is the basis of all holiness. The holiest person you know is the most grateful person you know.” -Ronald Rolheiser
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