This is the Truth Network. Encouraging Prayer. God offers an open invitation for His 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. It's a great lead in. That's what we're talking about today, is soaking prayer. And it's a term that sometimes people consider a contemplative approach to prayer, but it's so much more than that. And I want to go there today by looking at Luke chapter 6, verses 12 and 13. It says, One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.
When morning came, He called His disciples to Him, and chose twelve of them, whom He also designated apostles. Now, here's the striking thing. It begins with, Jesus spent the night praying to God.
How do you do that? You know, think about that. How do you spend an entire night praying to God? That challenges us, because often we have trouble praying for five minutes, and we may feel like we're repeating ourselves.
So, let's talk about that a little bit. What would you do, Robby? Oh, way to challenge me right out of the chute.
You know, like most whales, it's one bite at a time. Like, well, let me go to the Lord in prayer. And often, I like to check with Him, like, are we done?
Like, is there something else before You have me do what it is You've asked me to do? And if He starts putting something on my heart to read, you know, or study, or, you know, it's that kind of fluid. For me, you know, I loved Eugene Peterson's, the ideas biographer explained that he had a conversational intimacy with the Scripture. And so, a lot of times, when I'm in Scripture, I'm soaking, in my view, I'm soaking prayer, because that's part of the experience.
Right, right. And I find it can be the same thing when you're reading a devotional work. If you're mindful before God, you're just sitting sort of like, you know, a student in the classroom, and you're attentive to Him. Lord, what are you saying to me through Your Spirit?
I think that's right. You know, sometimes when you see this online, again, you see it described as seeking an experience with God. And it's not that, really. It's being with God whether you get something from Him or not. It's a step of faith where you just recognize, hey, I may not be feeling anything right now, but I am just with Him, and I want to be in His presence. And you see this in a few different ways in Scripture.
One of the ways you see it is right here with Jesus. What did He do right after He spent the night praying to God? Yeah, He immediately had an experience with the apostles, slash disciples.
Right. He chose the twelve apostles. So He did it before He had a significant decision. It was like He just had to be with Abba Father. He just had to sit in front of Him and just receive from Him whatever God wanted to give.
So, again, you do this whether you get something or not. The main goal is, again, just being with God. But, yes, you want to saturate yourself, if you will, with thoughts of Him. You want to do what Jesus did. Notice that He withdrew to a mountainside, so He went to a quiet place.
If you're going to try soaking prayer, which is really just soaking in Jesus and soaking in the Spirit and in the presence of God, then it has to be a quiet place. And then, obviously, it was there that I'm sure He had to be listening to God, as you were saying, and then He was able to choose from all of His disciples. He was able to designate the twelve apostles.
So, again, if Jesus is our example in everything, this whole idea of taking long, extended time, especially when you have a lifetime decision to make, oh, it's vital. I mean, you know, the twelve apostles affected world history unlike anyone else. I have so many questions about that, I can't help but just jump in and say, okay, so He and the Father are talking that night, and I guess I always assumed, I guess wrong, that they knew from all time who the apostles were going to be. And they knew that Judas was going to betray Him, and one of those that He chose was Judas, right?
It's kind of a neat thing to think that they weren't deciding who they were going to choose as much as talking about what the experience had been in the relationship both with them and with these men. Well, keep in mind, Jesus was fully God and fully human, so He limited Himself in being fully human. The Father knew He went to the Father. He said that everything that He received, that He made known to us, was from the Father, and so I think He is in a position of saying, Lord, where are we?
Where do I go with this? But also, I want to mention this whole idea of being with God for an extended time. Some people use music for that, and that can be wonderful. You also see an example, another kind of soaking prayer, and we've talked about this before in persevering in prayer, but in some ways it's more applicable to soaking prayer because it just happens within a matter of probably a couple hours. Elijah in 1 Kings 1842, where Elijah goes up and he overlooks Mt. Carmel, it's one of my favorite passages, and God has already promised him to send rain, but rain hasn't come. Elijah sits in this position of prayer with his head between his knees, and he sends his servant to check and sends him back seven times. And so, you know, go again, go again, go again, and each time he's praying. He's just, Father. It's beautiful, but a perfect opportunity for us to soak, James.
Let's do it. Father, we praise you. We praise you just for your love for us, and that we can come to you, and that you want us before you for extended times, and that's hard for us, but Lord, help us.
Thank you that you will. We look to you in faith, and we look forward to it. 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. This is the Truth Network.
