September-October 1998

Richard Foster on Prayer

Hearing The Heartbeat of God

by J. Michael Feazell

"Is that guy for real?"

That's a question I've often been asked about Richard Foster. Perhaps it seems like an unusual question about a respected Christian author and teacher. Maybe the question comes from the natural human tendency to doubt the likelihood that a fellow broken sinner could really be, on the inside, what he talks about on the outside. We all know talk is cheap. The world is full of hypocrites, people who profess one thing, but whose close associates know don't practice what they preach.

But "this guy" is definitely for real. Foster is not a put-on, nor is he impressed with his own accomplishments or authority. He is just one of the guys, a typical, struggling Christian whom God loves, and one who finds his deepest joy in spending time with his Redeemer.

Genuine people tend to be honest about who they are not. They don't pretend to be spiritual giants. Perhaps that is what makes them able to communicate effectively about the grace of God -- they keenly recognize their own need for it.

Plain Truth: Why would a perfect and holy God listen to me, anyway? After all, he knows what I'm really like.

Richard Foster: Well, it's a good question, and these are exactly the kinds of questions we need to ask. It is precisely because God knows what I'm really like that he invites me to approach him. We know what our children are like, and yet don't we long to enter into life experiences with them?

We long to have them ask us for things they need. We long to play with them and to be with them. We long for the kind of interaction that develops a relationship, and that's what prayer really is about. It's about a loving, wondrous, hilarious, agonizing, love relationship that we are developing with God. God wants us to build a history with him, and prayer is one of the chief ways we can go about that.

Q. But doesn't God already know everything? Why do we need to pray if God already knows what we need and what we're going to say?

A. God will not come into certain corners of our lives until we open those corners to him. Certainly, God knows our hearts better than we know our hearts. But he will not work in those areas unless we say, "Come." That's part of the active relationship of God giving us perfect freedom to invite him to come. It isn't just amounts of knowledge we're talking about. It is the life relationship, the interaction with God, that changes us.

One of the most important things about prayer is that we are transformed through the experience. We draw close to the heart of God. We hear the heartbeat of God, the things that God is after, the rhythm of God. We learn how God works. For example, one of the things we pick up as we learn to pray is that Satan pushes and condemns, but God draws and encourages. And through prayer, we come to learn the difference. We experience God drawing and encouraging us.

Q. But my mind seems to wander all over the place when I try to pray. If I'm not really communicating with God because I can't even think of what to say next, what's the point?

A. We are a distracted people. We're filled with "much-ness" and "many-ness." But a primary way that can be dealt with is through an attentiveness to God. If at first all we realize in our experiences in prayer is how distracted we are, we gain ground. Because in some sense, that realization means we have come in touch with that center which knows no distraction. In God there is no distraction. God is perfectly at rest and perfectly active.

Prayer, attentive prayer, not rushing prayer, not hectic prayer, but attentive prayer is not filled with lots of words. It's filled with attentiveness. One writer said, "I have found that God never leads us into an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness." Attentive prayer will help us deal with that intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.

Q. I'm usually not comfortable praying unless I feel like I'm on good terms with God. Doesn't God want me to be in a good attitude before I pray?

A. In one of my very earliest experiences in prayer, I prayed in public, and afterwards I was just crushed with my own self -- with my own arrogance, my own strutting, my own desire to look good, you know, trying to say the right words. And I just said to myself, "I'm not going to pray again, certainly not publicly, until I get all my motives straight."

Now, it might have been a nice sentiment, and I might have had a good heart about it. But it actually froze my ability to pray, because I could never get my motives straight until I finally realized that prayer itself is one of the means God uses for purifying the motives. As one writer put it, "We learn to pray as we can, not as we can't." We just come with ourselves, and here we are.

God is big enough to handle all the mixture in our lives, and he will purify the motives. And, if God doesn't hear the prayer of the sinner, we're in trouble, aren't we? No, God hears. There is a sense in which it's like a little child that can never draw a bad picture. A child of God can't utter a bad prayer. We come with our ego-centered, greed-motivated prayers, and God looks at that and says, "That's my child. That's my child who has chosen to be with me. It's a beautiful prayer."

Now, God will not leave us there, but he receives us there. God works with us -- enters the relationship; we're building a history with him. That's how the motive, that's how the problem of sin, that's how all those things begin to be dealt with in time. We just come as we are. You know that old song, Just As I Am. Well, that's the way it is. We're not only saved by grace, we live by grace, and we pray by grace. God loves us so much that he receives us just as we are, and he loves us so much that he won't leave us where we are.

Q. But what about when I'm really angry? What if I say something God wouldn't approve of?

A. God is big enough to handle that. You know, the Bible has angry prayers where the psalmist cried out to God, and God was big enough to handle it. Our anger itself can become an aspect of our prayer. God will receive it. God will take it in. God will work with it. Pray your anger and move through it. Don't be afraid to bring all that you are to God. We pray as we can, not as we can't. Don't wait until you get pious, because, in part, piety comes by prayer itself. We bring all of our experiences to God. He likes to be with us. At the heart of God is the desire to give and the desire to forgive. In that relationship, we will learn and God will change us.

Q. Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm asking for something I really want. It makes me feel selfish, and I don't think God answers selfish prayers.

A. Just ask. The reason that God answers prayer is because his children ask. Sometimes God will withhold things from us for our good, just like we withhold things from our children for their good. But don't feel bad if you want something.

Jesus said that we should pray for daily bread. Those are things we want. That's a petition, and petitionary prayers are not bad. If there are bad motives, God will show that to you. God will help you. When you pray, ask confidently, boldly, but also attentively. You're listening, because God can speak to you, too. He can help you to see areas, maybe, that need to change, that need some work. Or he may help us see that the very gift itself would be just the thing that would ruin us. We're going to find someday that God's refusals are the greatest answers to our best prayers -- to the real prayer of our hearts that we often don't fully understand.

Q. What is "the real prayer of our hearts that we often don't fully understand?"

A. You mentioned praying for what I want. But sometimes what I want is not what I need. And God helps us to see what we really need. That's part of the interaction with God. The real prayer of our hearts is for what we really need, even though we may not yet understand that what we really need is not identical to what we are asking for.

Q. You've mentioned "interaction" several times. So, prayer is not just talking to God? It's also listening to God?

A. Prayer is an interactive communication with God about what God and I are working on together. People will say to me, "What do I pray about?" And I say, "What are you and God working on together?" We ask, and we listen. That's the attentiveness. The first step in listening is just to be quiet. One of the old writers had a prayer that went like this: "Oh, divine master, teach me this mute language which says so much."

The first task is to quiet our noisy hearts and minds. Thoughts flit in our minds like mosquitoes, and there needs to come a kind of silencing of that. I would encourage people, even if it's only a couple of moments, to just learn to sit attentively. If actually being still in terms of physical posture is difficult, then take a walk -- attentive to the face of God. We can learn to walk and pray. The ancient writers talked about working and praying. Well, we can walk and pray, and we can work and pray.

One of the finest inventions for solitude in our culture is the automobile -- if we turn off the radio. You can make your commute to work a mini-retreat and be open to God bringing you what you need. Have a little verse before you that you read just as you start the car: "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised." And then, as you drive along you might pray, "Lord, I would like to know about your greatness. I'd like to experience it. If you have anything that you want to teach me about how great you are, then I would receive that." And just drive along and listen, be attentive. Like good friends, you don't have to talk to be together. You can just be together. But sometimes, God will teach you.

Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd, and my sheep know my voice." Jesus Christ is alive. He is here today. And he is among his people, teaching us. He has not contracted laryngitis. His voice is not hard to hear. His vocabulary is not difficult to understand. Just be attentive. There are many ways that Jesus can speak to us. He speaks through Scripture. He speaks through other people -- the preaching of the Word, the community of faith. And prayer is also one of those ways. So we listen.

Q. Some people say you have to pray a certain amount of time, say, at least one hour a day, or you're not growing.

A. Pray as you can, not as you can't. There are many ways to pray. Of course, what I end up saying is, "Pray 24 hours a day." That is, we learn a way of living in which prayer simply pervades everything. One of the old writers said of the prayerful life, "It takes none of our time, but it occupies all of our time." I would encourage people to find ways in which prayer fits naturally into their lives.

There are lots of ways of praying. One writer talks about "flash prayers." You just give a flash prayer as you're on the elevator going to the next appointment. You might pray about your work. You might pray about your children. These are important prayers that you give before God.

The people who speak of an hour a day are probably referring to a time when you might have the Bible in front of you. That's a very important thing to do. But, maybe once a day is a difficult thing. How about just once a week in a little more extended way and see what you learn from that. How about an afternoon once a week in which you simply give this time to God and learn, and prayerfully go through the Bible. Or maybe you want to pray with God as you take a walk in a park, and that can be a prayer walk. If you miss a day, God isn't going to zap you. That isn't how God works.

Just don't turn it into a system, a legalism. Prayer is a living relationship. And so the idea of one hour a day is just a way of saying, you know, get acquainted. You spend time with your spouse because you love your spouse, because you want to be with your husband or wife, and that's the same way with God. We spend time because that is part of the love relationship.

We must never be discouraged by our lack of prayer. Even in our prayerlessness we can hunger for God. If so, the hunger itself is prayer. One writer said, "The desire for prayer is prayer, the prayer of desire." In time, the desire will lead to practice, and practice will increase the desire. When we cannot pray, we let God be our prayer. Nor should we be frightened by our hardness of heart; prayer will soften it. We give even our lack of prayer to God.

Q. So, really, I never have to worry about God shutting me out.

A. Never. The truth is, we all come to God with a tangled mass of motives, good and bad. We do not have to be wise, or pure, or filled with faith or anything else for our Lord and Savior to receive us.

We simply must set all these things aside and begin praying, because it is in the very act of prayer itself -- the intimate, ongoing interaction with God -- that all these things are cared for in due time. Enjoy God. A loving relationship with God is not something to be feared, but rather a great adventure. 

20 years of Celebrating Spiritual Disciplines Richard Foster has served as minister of youth, associate pastor, and pastor in a variety of church settings. He and his wife Carolyn have two grown children and reside in Colorado. He has served as a professor of theology at George Fox University, Friends University, and currently at Azusa Pacific University. Foster originally authored, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, 20 years ago, revising it in 1988. This Christian classic gives contemporary applications for 12 ancient Christian disciplines and shows how these disciplines can help us shed superficial habits and bring the abundance of God into our lives. Published by HarperSanFrancisco, Celebration of Discipline is available through your local Christian bookstore.

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