Turn It All AroundSample

Pray and Learn

Apologetics, art, food—if you enjoy discussing any of these topics, you’ll get along just fine with Preston Perry. As a poet, hip-hop artist, teacher and apologist, Preston has a passion for words and, more importantly, the Word of God. He and his wife, Jackie, host the “With the Perrys” podcast, where they speak with humor and honesty about essential topics like relationships, race, theology, politics, and parenting. Join us for a fascinating discussion with Preston about what spiritual practice is working best for him right now.

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Prayer. Prayer and knowing and truly believing that God hears me. It’s the faith that God hears me when I talk to him, and it’s a reminder that God wants to commune with me. That at the end of the day—when I’m done writing books and when I’m done teaching, when I’m done doing apologetics videos and when I’m done doing podcasts—I'm just his son, and he wants to talk to me. He just wants to commune with me. He wants to be with me. He wants to love me. And he wants me to love him.

If Christians can get that basic truth down, I think everything else falls into place. Prayer is so essential to the Christian faith because it teaches us so much about God. It directs us to what he wants us to read and how he wants us to experience him. He lets us know what he wants us to do and how he wants us to play that out in our lives. For me, prayer is the spiritual practice in my life that has helped cultivate me in this season. It’s giving me clarity in this season about what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing and how I should be loving God and loving my neighbor. Prayer and reading the Word, I think, are synonymous in some ways. They definitely hold hands. The number one thing is this: prayer—never getting tired and just coming to the Lord in prayer.

One thing I’ve learned about God is that God doesn’t compete with the idols in the world around us—because he doesn’t have to. When we pray, God is not going to speak very loudly to compete. God wants us to come to him, and he wants to be exclusive with us. He wants to talk to us. I’m not talking about audibly; he wants to put impressions on our hearts to reveal to us his will in our lives. This thing called Christianity is not just a religious practice where we systematically do things. It is a relationship with a real being. So God is consistently talking. He’s always talking to us. We’re just not always listening. I’m not quiet enough to just be still to listen. So, I think prayer kind of holds the scene and helps us focus on what God is trying to reveal and speak to us.

—Preston Perry, spoken-word poet, hip-hop artist, as told to Rapt Interviews

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