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Verses marked TEV are taken from the Bible in Today’s English Version (Good News Bible), © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976. Used by permission.

Verses marked PHILLIPS are taken from J.B. Phillips: The New Testament in Modern English, Revised Edition. © J.B. Phillips 1958, 1960, 1972. Used by permission of Macmillan Publishing Company.

Verses marked RSV are taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

CONVERSATION WITH GOD
Formerly Quiet Moments in Prayer
Copyright © 1993 by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Part One

Learning the Art of Conversation

Intimate Prayer Is Conversation with God

Nothing is more important. It’s the source of life’s greatest joy. There’s no power or peace without it. With it, we receive supernatural insight and wisdom. Our ability to understand and love people is maximized. We think more clearly and can act more decisively. Our problems shrink and we can tackle opportunities with gusto. Most of all, we fulfill the reason we were born: to know and love God.

I’m talking about the time we spend alone with God in prayer. Don’t groan inside. This is not another “ought to” book about prayer to add to the guilt you may feel about the infrequency or shortness of your prayers. Rather, this is a “how to” book about a different way of praying.

Think of a time when you had a really satisfying conversation with someone who truly loves and affirms you. Remember how you felt? Respected, cherished, accepted. And because you felt love and admiration for this person, you sensed that it was safe to share your innermost thoughts and feelings. You wanted to listen to his or her thoughts. Give-and-take in the conversation flowed. You knew it was okay to laugh at yourself and were not embarrassed by your tears over your failures. After the conversation you felt refreshed, renewed by the delight of having someone be real with you and with whom you could let down your guard and be yourself.

Conversations like that are all too rare. Many husbands and wives have neither the time nor the sensitivity to have them. Friends seldom open up with each other. Fellowship with other Christians is no guarantee of deep, personal exchange.

There is only one Person with whom profound conversation is possible on a consistent basis. My use of the capital “P” has already told you who I think it is. God.

True Prayer Is Conversation with God

The use of the word conversation to describe prayer with the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord of all may have a presumptuous ring for some. For others it may seem too pedestrian. But for most of us, the question is whether a conversation with Almighty God is even a possibility.

We’re much more experienced at monologue prayer. We praise God, thank Him for His blessings, tell Him about our concerns for people and the world conditions, ask for guidance, and commit the day to Him. It’s like a one-way telephone conversation in which a person goes on endlessly without the slightest pause for even an “aha” from the other party and then hangs up before a response can be made.

Many of us have been conditioned to think of prayer as monologue because of public prayer in church. Often the pastoral prayer sounds like a newscaster summarizing the world news as if God didn’t know! And in some of the prayers of friends we consider to be supersaints, they hardly take a breath between their magnificently worded phrases. So it’s very understandable that conversation would be a strange way to think about prayer.

Years ago, I made getting to know God the primary commitment of my life. I tried to learn how to pray. At the beginning of each day I would have a quiet time in which I read a portion of the Bible and then gave my monologue prayer. At the end of my prayer, I would sometimes take time for silence. That time became increasingly shorter as greater demands were made on my life, and the pull of the day’s challenges distracted me. I hate to admit it, but on most days I hung up on God before I had listened long enough to receive His wisdom and guidance.

One day I stumbled on a secular book about effective conversation. It described how to be a good listener as well as a talker in conversations. I learned that nothing destroys conversation more than long discourses that leave no room for response.

Then it hit me. What would it be like to have a conversation with God? I began experimenting. My pilgrimage in seeking to know God took a sharp turn.

First I learned that God begins the conversation. He calls us into dialogue with Him. The ordered steps of prayer flow naturally. We will talk about these steps of preparation, praise, confession, thanksgiving, meditation, intercession, supplication, guidance, and empowering in the chapters of this book. But the crucial thing I want to stress at this point is the importance of pausing to listen for the Lord’s response between the steps of prayer.

The Bible is essential to the deeper quality of conversation with God. The Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit not only as the infallible guide for faith and practice, but as the source of verses through which God guides us in each phase of prayer.

Magnificent promises are found throughout the Bible. These promises are direct quotes of God’s words in the Old Testament and of Christ in the New Testament. They call us to prayer and lead us on from step to step in an evolving conversation of prayer. When we listen to the Lord in these promises and meditate on them, they instigate further thought and fresh inspiration in our minds. God does not contradict His promises in the Bible. He will be to us what He has said He will be.

The Scriptures also provide us with the language of response. They help us love God, to trust Him with our needs, and open ourselves to His guidance. More than just thought starters, they liberate our own words to express the longings of our hearts. The psalmists, wisdom writers, prophets, apostles, and other characters of the Bible teach us how to converse with God. Their words give wings to our own. They vibrate with life when we reword them in the first-person singular and pray them as our own prayers.

Then, as we pause to listen between each part of prayer, God speaks in both the Scriptures and in the thoughts He forms in our minds.

When the promises of God and the responses of inspired writers of the Scriptures are carefully arranged, they give us progression and power in our prayers. There are at least nine crucial steps of prayer outlined in the Bible based on clear admonitions about what we are to seek from God in prayer.

The chapters of this book are arranged to move through a conversation with God. We will discover biblical promises and responses for each step of the conversation. I have used these verses for years and they have not only deepened my understanding of what God wants and offers, but also of what I can dare to ask.

At the conclusion of the book I have provided thirty guides for using Scriptures in conversational prayer. My hope is that you will experience an exciting month of putting into practice what we have discovered about the steps of prayer. These daily guides can be repeated throughout the subsequent months of the year.

Before long you will memorize these verses of prayer and they will be in your mind and heart wherever you are. They will guide your prayers in the morning hours, through the day, before going to sleep, and when you are awakened during the night with worry or concerns.

Are you eager to learn how to have powerful conversations with God? The request of the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray,” expresses the longing of our hearts today. A daily time alone with God in conversation, listening to Him and responding, can change prayer from a duty to a delight!

God Begins the Conversation

A Highland Scots friend of mine has a colorful way of praying. I like the straightforward way he talks to God, but one day I became concerned about how he opened his prayer. “Dear God, I hope Ye’re listenin’, because I need Ye and I dinna ken whether Ye’re in a good mood or not, but if Ye are, I’ve got some big problems that’ll need Yer help.”

As much as I appreciated my friend’s vernacular veracity, I was disturbed by the underlying assumption of his prayer. Later, with the frankness we enjoy in our friendship, I said, “Something disturbs me about the way you began your prayer. You sounded like talking to God was your idea and that you had to get His attention.”

He seemed open to what I was saying, so I went on: “Prayer is a conversation with God. He begins the conversation. The desire to pray is the result of His greater desire to have a deep communication of love with us. When we feel the need to pray it’s because He’s been at work in us. We don’t need to get His attention—He wants our attention! Prayer starts with God.”

“That’s sure a different way o’ thinkin’ aboot prayer!” my friend exclaimed.

Indeed it is. And it’s where we must begin our investigation of prayer as conversation. The first step of prayer is preparation: God’s preparation of us. Long before we talk to God, He talks to us. He calls us into conversation.

Gently, but persistently, the Holy Spirit stirs our spirit. He creates a hunger and thirst for God. A sense of loneliness for God is a gift produced by the Spirit.

This changes the false idea that we have to search for God. He is in search of us. Pascal expressed this truth vividly: “I would not be searching for Thee, hadst Thou not already found me.”

It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear (Isaiah 65:24).

This is my favorite verse to repeat when I feel the first stirring in my soul creating a desire to pray. Often it’s what I hear God say when I begin my time alone with Him in the morning. These words prompt me to say, “Good morning, Lord. Thanks for beginning the conversation!”

Long before we think of praying, God is thinking of us. And this is what He goes on to say,

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD (Jeremiah 29:11-14).

Talk about a conversation opener! Imagine someone you love and admire, and whose thoughts and opinions you cherish, saying to you, “You are constantly on my mind. And when I think of you they are wonderful thoughts of peace and future happiness for you. I’m pulling for the very best for you. What a joy it is to be your cheerleader!” It would not be difficult to find time for conversation with a person like that.

Multiply the best of human care and concern for us a billion times and you’ve only begun to fathom God’s love for us as He calls us into conversation. That’s the whole point of time alone with God. It is to allow Him the opportunity to love us.

He also wants to guide our thoughts and give us wisdom. Our God knows the problems we face. The burdens we carry. He understands that we are easily discouraged when difficulties pile up and the road ahead seems littered with impossibilities.

Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).

Quite an offer! Especially when we consider the Hebrew root of the word translated as “mighty.” It means inaccessible or beyond human understanding.

I don’t know about you, but every day I have a long list of problems and challenges where the answers seem inaccessible. I want to decide what’s best for all concerned but often I have to admit I’m stumped.

Then God opens the conversation of prayer by promising that if I take time alone with Him, He will give me insight and discernment, plus a strategy and courage way beyond anything I could think up myself. St. Patrick said, “Belong to God and become a wonder to yourself.” It happens. I discover answers in prayer that astound me and I exclaim, “I could never have thought that up myself!”

Remembering those times makes God’s invitation to conversation a very welcome one as I prepare for prayer. When I’m under a pile of problems, His encouraging conversation starter, “Call on Me, I’ll show you things you’d never conceive of by yourself,” creates an urgent desire to pray.

Another way God opens the conversation of prayer on days when we are loaded down with problems are His words from Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.” “Be still” means more than silence. The words can also mean, “Let up, leave off, let go.” In other words, “Let go of your tight grip. I am your God. I will help you.” Irresistibly we want to talk to Him in response to His gracious offer.

Sometimes we feel reluctant to pray because of some failures in our lives. When we need God the most, we resist the conversation of prayer because we feel unworthy. At times like that the Lord’s invitation is articulated in verses of great assurance of grace. Take Isaiah 43:25 for example:

I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins.

We know what that Old Testament promise cost God in the death of His Son. It is through Christ, the Mediator, that we are called to prayer. And we respond with the awesome realization that we are loved and already forgiven.

The message of Christ is filled with invitations to prayer. He comes to us and says,

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Revelation 3:20).

What an impelling call to prayer! And what a vivid description of the personal exchange prayer is meant to be.

All Christ needs is access, and He will come in to make our conversation possible as the eternal Mediator. He calls it “dining” with us, and we with Him. In biblical parlance the common evening meal suggests intimate and joyous fellowship. This is what He envisions prayer to be: an intimate communication in which He is completely open with us and we can be our authentic selves with Him. A free and natural exchange can take place. Nothing is so healing and empowering as the quiet, uninterrupted communication with God through His Son and inspired by His Spirit.

Years ago, I discovered a transforming truth about prayer. Up to that time I thought of prayer only as a means of receiving guidance and power to work for God. Then I came across a statement by Thomas Chalmers, a great Scots preacher of a previous generation. During a prolonged illness, he discovered this truth: “Prayer does not enable us to do a greater work for God. Prayer is a greater work for God.”

Prayer is the greatest work we can do for God because when we pray we receive His most wondrous gift: communion with Him. Mother Teresa of Calcutta put it clearly, “Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself.”

How Shall We Respond?

And how shall we respond to this gracious invitation? What is our answer as our part of preparation for a conversation with God? It is simply to tell Him how much we need Him and want to be with Him.

Again the Scriptures help us. They free us to express our longing to be alone with God and how thankful we are that He has initiated the conversation. So often I feel like the psalmist:

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (Psalm 42:1-2).

A dominant desire like that not only pleases God but dilates our total consciousness to an attentive conversation with Him. He gives His best to those who want Him most.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).

Sometimes my response to God’s invitation for a conversation of prayer is to rally every part of my being to wide-awake alertness to the privilege. All of Psalm 103 helps me do that, especially the first five verses:

Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

That wake-up call to my whole self—mind, soul, and body—prepares me to put into my own words my personal response to God and to His outstretched heart. It goes something like this, “Father, I am stunned and amazed again and again by Your initiative love in calling me into a conversation of prayer. I’m so thankful. You knew how much I needed to break the silence barrier; You understand my hurts and hopes; You are sensitive to the fact that I need You more than my next breath. I accept with awe and wonder Your offer to talk with me and allow me to open my heart to You. I have no righteousness of my own to deserve this privilege, but accept it only in the righteousness You purchased for me through Jesus Christ, Your Son, and my Lord. With Him to guide me, and Your Spirit within to inspire me, I will listen to You with rapt attention and respond with all my mind, heart, and will. I love You, Father.”

All of this is prelude to the subsequent steps of a conversation with God. The Scriptures I have suggested for this initial step of preparation are only a few of the hundreds in the Bible. Over the years, I have tried to memorize many of them. They help me claim God’s invitations to prayer. Most of all, they remind me that prayer always starts at His instigation.

A Conversation of Love

We wait, quietly basking in the sheer wonder of being called into a conversation of prayer with God. Then He speaks and calls us on to the next phase of prayer. His words echo down the centuries and reverberate in our souls.

Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

The supreme glory of our life is to understand and know God! The more we know God, the more we praise Him; and the more we praise Him, the more we know Him.

When we give thanks, we glorify God for what He has done; when we praise Him, we glorify Him for what He is in Himself. Praise concentrates on God for Himself rather than His gifts and provisions. And according to His own desires expressed so clearly, He longs for us to glory in the fact that we understand and know Him. The depth of our praise measures the quality of our relationship with Him.

I will praise you, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will tell of Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praises to Your name (Psalm 9:1-2).

Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You. Thus I will bless You while I live.

True Praise Is Difficult

For many people, profound and prolonged praise is very difficult. They don’t know God all that well personally. So they quickly move through praise and on to telling God of their needs. Unselfish praise, self-forgetting glorification of God for His majesty and grace, comes harder.

There’s also a deeper reason: Praise is the antidote for pride. And pride does not give up its grip easily. When we praise God, we admit He is Lord of all. Years ago, as a student, I memorized some lines that make my mind and heart soar in praise: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable; in His being are wisdom, power, holiness, and truth.” Now, I add grace. Or take what God Himself said in His call to praise from Jeremiah, “But let him glory in this, that he understands and knows Me” and pay attention to what He wants us to know—“that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgement, and righteousness in the earth.” Our God delights in those who know these attributes of His nature.

God desires an intimate, personal relationship with us. Praise surges from our hearts for what He is to us in that relationship, quite apart from what He provides for us.

We can understand that on a human level of relationship. Being loved only because of what we do for people wears thin. “Who loves and praises me for what I am?” we ask.

Praise for the Triune God

Praising God for who He is leads us to adoration for the magnificent ways He has of being God—as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is a mystery, yes, but don’t forget that the word mystery in Greek, mysterion, is not something enigmatic, inexplicable, inscrutable, or beyond explanation. Rather, it is that which can be known only by divine revelation. We think of a mystery as knowledge withheld; when it comes to the Trinity, it is truth revealed. And God has chosen it to reveal His wondrous nature so we can love and praise Him.

We can understand and know God only as He chooses to reveal His attributes of lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness. All three persons or subsistencies of God have acted in perfect harmony and oneness in Creation, the Incarnation, the Atonement of the Cross, the Resurrection, and the birth of a new creation of humankind at Pentecost. We know who God is by His self-disclosure in history.

We were created for praise. When what was meant to be our instinctive natural adoration was debilitated at the core of our nature by sin, the Father sent Christ to redeem us so that we would be able to “understand and know” Him. Unfettered praise leaps with joy in us when we accept the staggering truth:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth…And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace (John 1:14,16).

In Christ’s life, message, death, and resurrection, we behold the revelation of God’s lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness dramatized and displayed before our eyes.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me,” He boldly claimed. “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:6,9).

Then stand at the foot of the cross and your praise will surge. Through Christ’s death, God was both the just and the justifier (Romans 3:26). And who can contain his praise at the empty tomb or when the risen Christ tells us, “Because I live you shall live also”? Surely that’s enough to keep us praising through eternity.

But that’s not all. The risen Christ is also the baptizer with the Holy Spirit. What would we do without the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit who guides, enables, and empowers? He inspires our growth in Christlikeness through His fruit, equips us for ministry with His gifts, and enables supernatural living through His power. But the Holy Spirit does not draw attention to Himself: His ministry is to help us glorify the risen Christ.

We learn how to praise from the way the Father loves and honors His Son, the way the Son glorifies the Father, and the way the Holy Spirit exalts the Son in our lives. It’s a glory circle of love. So we join the apostle Paul in bursting into adoration for “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

The Secret of Praise

When you or I are called into prayer, the living Christ, through the power of the Spirit, enables our praise to the Father. We do not produce praise on our own, alone; Christ motivates it and the Spirit manifests it in our hearts.

It is so crucial to appreciate this dynamic of true worship as we move on from preparation to actually praising God. We must overcome the duality of our thinking. Customarily, we think of God “up there” or “out there somewhere.” We think of praise as something we do from a distance with our own strength. But our moods vacillate; our attitudes fluctuate. We don’t always “feel” like praising God.

This is why we need the Mediator, Christ our Lord, to reaffirm our relationship with the Father. “To Him [the Father] be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages” (Ephesians 3:21). He is the rallier—the cheerleader, if you please, of praise.

So true praise is done through us not just by us. What is our part? To yield! We were fashioned, redeemed, and recreated to be channels of praise. When our conversation of prayer moves into praise, at that moment we can be led in our adoration of the Father for who He is, by the Spirit of Christ. And His call to worship is:

The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24).

Our spirit is the highest part of our nature. True worship happens when our spirit is yielded and is ushered by Christ into friendship and intimacy with the Father. The immortal and invisible dimension of our being is brought into the presence of the immortal and invisible God.

Ask for the Power to Praise

I’ve found it essential to ask for the power to praise: “Holy Father, I want to glory only in understanding and knowing You. I surrender my mind, emotions, will, and body for Your Son and the Holy Spirit to usher me into Your glory circle so that I will be included in the loop of love You share. I want to glorify You with my praise!”

That prayer may sound presumptuous. Not at all! It is simply claiming what Christ prayed on the night before He was crucified. His petition of the Father puts into perspective the purpose of His incarnation and His continuing ministry. I listen in on His prayer with awe; it gives me holy audacity to praise.

I do not pray for these alone [the disciples], but also for those who will believe in Me through their word [you and me]; that they may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You….that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name and will declare it [through history, but now to you and me!], that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them (John 17:20-26).

As I have stated in my books through the years, Christ is the heart of God. Through the Spirit He brings our hearts into union with the heart of God. It’s in that union that we offer our praise. Thinking magnificently of God unleashes our praise. So, don’t hurry through praise. All the other steps of our conversation with God in prayer depend on the fellowship with God it produces.

How to Start Praising

Now, yielded as a channel of praise, begin by telling God how much you love Him. Say it now as you read this: “I love you, Lord, and I want to tell You why. I love You for who You are.” Imagine the delight of the Father as you share the joy of what He has meant to you! He knows us and wants us to know Him.

I will never forget a conversation with one of my sons. He had asked me to set aside a time when we could talk. When we sat down, I was fearful that there was some great problem or some misunderstanding between us that needed to be straightened out. To my great delight he said, “Dad, there’s so much I never told you about what you mean to me. Not what you’ve done for me, but who you are. I just want you to sit quietly without getting embarrassed or interrupting while I tell you why I love you.”

In spite of all my perceived inadequacies as a parent and a person, I was thrilled to sense that he knew me and had observed some of the result of the Potter with the human clay of my life. And he also knows the work still to be done on the Potter’s wheel.

A similar delight was given me when, as part of my church’s twentieth anniversary celebration of my ministry with them, my three children wrote a “Dear Dad” letter and had it printed in the church newspaper without my knowledge. I sobbed with pure joy as I read this letter of love. But again, the thing that moved me so deeply was that they understood and knew the passion, vision, and verve of my life. They, more than anyone (except my late wife, Mary Jane), knew my weaknesses, but they also knew something else—the longing of my heart to live for God with gusto and joy.

These “how much more” illustrations only touch the fringe of what our praise means to God. He has no imperfections for us to overlook while giving affirmation, so how much more is God pleased when we reveal in our praise that we understand and know Him, and glory in that alone!

Use of Scripture in Praise

The Scriptures are invaluable in finding words to express our praise. And on this side of Calvary and Pentecost, we pray them to God with even greater depth of praise.

My beloved professor, James Stewart, taught me how to use the psalms as the same praise guide used by Jesus. He said, “All the way through the Book of Psalms, even in its most sorrow-ladened passages, you feel that you are walking on a smoldering volcano of praise, liable to burst out at any moment into a great flame of praise to God. And as the book draws to a close, the flame leaps clear from the smoke; here you have praise, and nothing but praise.”

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