Praying in Your Character

In the last episode, I wrote about having "patterns and systems".

HOWEVER, one of the dangers of prescribing systems for praying is that because God has made us with different personalities and characters one person may find one pattern or practice wonderfully helpful while another person finds it nothing but a struggle.

King Saul gave David his armor to fight Goliath. '"I can’t go in these', David said to Saul … so he took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:39-40).

Just as Saul and David were different men who had each discovered for themselves two very different ways to fight effectively, so every disciple is unique and we need to discover what forms and practices, rhythms, and systems of prayer work best for us.

Today we are much more aware of neurodiversity. We also have a much better understanding of our different characters, so for example, some of us are more extroverted and others are more introverted. Some take in information through being carefully sensitive to their environment while others naturally default to their intuition. Some when making decisions follow a careful thinking process while others start with what they feel. And when dealing with the world and life around us some of us are ordered, programmed, and strategic, "judging", while others are more reactive, unplanned, spontaneous, "perceiving".

But this is only the beginning (as if we lived all of life out of one "character box"), because not only do we react differently in different contexts, but we are all changing and developing as people (especially as we learn more about the dynamic of being an apprentice of Jesus in the Kingdom), and what "works" at one stage of life is likely to be modified and changed at a later stage of life.

And, in addition, we need to learn to be sensitive to the Spirit’s Leading. For example, if the Lord is leading us through a tough and difficult season, such as Paul and his team went through in 2 Corinthians 1-6, we need to adapt our praying to work with the Lord and not be endlessly fighting and resisting what he is doing; "… we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:9).

Jesus calls all men and women to believe in Him, follow Him, and obey Him as Lord and Savior – but different disciples will live this out in different ways at different points in their lives. And that’s good, really good!

It’s excellent practice to seek to learn from others while also recognizing that what works for them may not work for you.

We need to pray with our character-type and not against it.

We need structure and patterns and we need variety and stimulation and change.

We need that wonderful combination of "dogged daily discipline" AND "spontaneity, sensitivity, and stimulation".

We need to take prayer really seriously on the one hand, while on the other hand, we should enjoy the Grace and Freedom to live as a free child of God at our Father’s Table – freely eating as much as we want of everything we want because we are His children and we know we have the right to do that! Indeed every parent wants their children to do that!

So our journey and progress in prayer will involve a journey in understanding ourselves and a journey in understanding the ways of the Spirit. It is a journey lived out through all the unexpected turbulence of life, and we will need all our intelligence and insight, and persistence to go forward in it, so we keep on seeking this Glorious Inheritance that we have in Christ.