How To Grow Younger Through Prayer

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. We invite people to talk with him at any time about anything. On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. So today we're going to talk about how to grow younger through prayer. And James, you say you've got a simple way to go about that.

So let's get started. Okay, well, our 20-month-old granddaughter is visiting right now and she doesn't have a lot of words, but she's a very good communicator in her own little way. And yesterday she was sitting on my lap and I was trying to teach her how to play patty cake.

You know, something about having young kids around brings out the kid even in curmudgeons like me. We played for a bit and while we did, there was a time where she just sat there and smiled at me. She just looked intently at my face, looked intently into my eyes and, you know, in a way that a child would.

An adult after a little bit would feel the need to say something, but not a word was necessary. She just touched my face, put her head on my chest, and in that way she was communicating her love for me. And as I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, man, this touches my heart. It's so beautiful.

It's so simple. Can't we do this with God as well? Yeah, a couple of episodes we were talking about how much it means to God when we smile at him from our heart and I couldn't really stop thinking about it, so you're taking this step a bit further, aren't you?

Yeah, right. I mean, what does it mean to become like little children, except to have the heart of a child? Children are trusting, they're unguarded with their affections, and I think we really grow younger in our own hearts when we pray like that. Think about what David writes in Psalm 27 about gazing on the beauty of the Lord, and we've talked about that as well, but it's so important, and what I find is we need to practice it, and again, this is one of those places where he'll help us as we do.

Oh, I agree. Gazing on God is really seeing him with the eyes of our hearts, and that's not this mystical thing. It's simple as thinking about all the things that are lovely about him and loving him for him. Yeah, that's a great way to put it, but in a way, I find it takes a bit of discipline because we're used to making prayer all about words, and this is about, again, the most simple heart stuff. Think about a baby with her mother. Mothers and babies gaze on each other, and they'll do it for the longest time, and that's such a God thing, I think. We get that from him, and what we need to realize is that we can love without having to say it, just by taking the most simple, heartfelt affection and turning it in God's direction. And what we have to remember is he made us to do this, so again, we grow younger when we do, and Robbie, honestly, this is one of those things I think you do so well, so tell me, is there anything you've discovered about it again recently?

Oh yeah, about this very thing we're talking about, because we did that episode. We actually did a Truth Talk Live episode about this idea of God smiling at you. When you see a newborn baby, the very first thing you try to do when you look at it is you smile. I mean, the smile just, it comes right out of your soul somewhere, and of course, I just had my eighth grandchild, and she was just born here about the time we started talking about this, and naturally, man, as I look into her face, the smile has to be just absolutely glowing, and so as soon as you brought that out, I couldn't help but just think about Margie, that's my granddaughter's name, I couldn't help but thinking about her face and how amazing it was to me just to see her little eyes open and to begin to perceive things. And you don't get any younger than that, right? And so immediately, as I started immediately going to the practice of God, just let me feel that with you, and what I felt was, and I can't really put it in words other than to be truly accepted and truly loved and being part of something that really, you always feel like you're left out, or I have a tendency to feel like I'm left out of this or I'm left out of that.

I was the youngest kid, so yeah. That they take that invitation to go just try, just look up and smile, and sense him looking back at you in the same way. It's just loving him for his presence, right? And it's so important for us to keep it simple, simple faith, simple love, simple affection, and God meets us there and he wants us to, you know, hold on to those moments with him and go there again and again. And I write about this in my new book, Peace Through Prayer, but the important thing here is to realize this is where relationship starts and lives, you know? That's why God tells us to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and strength and mind. And it's not anti-intellectual, not if you read Pascal or Augustine or Bernard of Clairvaux, you know?

It's just about being with him. The mind can be so easily self-aggrandizing, but the heart and mind play tricks on us as well. Maybe you've known someone who says, you know, they can't believe in God, but as you get to know them, what you find is that they really don't want to change something they're doing and they feel God would make them change. So then they say they have intellectual reservations and may even seem to come up with some good ones, but in reality, it's the heart that's pushing back.

Yeah, that's such a good point. Yeah, so what this is, is not only not pushing back, it's giving in, leaning in, just going to God in love. God loves it when we do this, you know, pours more of himself, more of his spirit, more of his strength and life into us as we do, because again, he's the source of every good thing. Oh, I love it, James, and unfortunately we're going to have to use words here, but could you simply, very simply just wrap things up in a prayer?

Yeah, let's do it. Abba Father, we love you. Oh, we thank you.

It's so good to be with you. Help us just to stay right here. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.