The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life. Hey!
SPEAKER_01Hello! Hello! Hello! Well, I'm Glenn. I'm Paul. And uh together we are the lifeguard Glenn and Paul. Yeah, and we're and we're back live as well. Uh so we have been out of our offices for the last. Do we want this? On directional or surround? We want it on directional. You sure?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Perhaps if you've got a view on this at home, we'd love to hear your thoughts on uh how to use our software and uh our USB microphone. I think unidirectional is the way forward. Um but that's not why you tune in. You tune in for incisive commentary on evangelism and theology and reaching your friends for Jesus. Yeah. Um whether you get that is another story. I'm constantly disappointed. Um so yes, we've been out of these offices for a month. Yeah. And they have been demolishing them around us.
SPEAKER_03It's going quite quickly though. Yeah. Feels quick to me, but then I've only been I'm normally only here two days a week anyway. So if you've been in the other office for five days a week, you probably have felt it more keenly than I have.
SPEAKER_01We've been crammed into a little room uh in a church uh nearby in Eastbourne, and uh Holy Trinity have hosted us, and thank you very much for Holy Trinity. But we're very glad to be starting to move back here. And uh the the next big job is our studio space, which is a massive, wonderful, echoing, booming chamber that we've now got to uh soundproof and uh yeah, make it make it acoustically kind of dead. It's uh it's a live room.
SPEAKER_03Very much live at the moment. Very live. Yes. But this and so where we are now, we're in what was our office space, and it will be our office space again. But I mean it's been recarpeted and repainted, and electric's done and tucked away nicely and painted and whatnot.
SPEAKER_01But and we've got a dishwasher.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. All these things. So at the moment, though, we're basically sitting in the middle of an empty room.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um but the work of Speak Life continues, and uh perhaps you saw last night uh that we published uh an interview between myself and Sharon Dirix, and uh Dirix Lime Rhymes with Lyrics. Yes.
SPEAKER_03I got that on her uh her interview, she said that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, Dirick's Rhymes with Lyrics, and she's written this great little book called Am I Just My Brain, all about reductive physicalism. Ah. Something I'm very familiar with, yeah. But it is it is essentially the view that I am simply my brain. And uh there's nothing to my mind beyond uh my neurons kind of fizzing together and my synapses firing. And uh we just we just have a chat about neuroscience and brain scanning, as well as philosophical issues, as well as uh issues to do with consciousness and and actually how Christianity best explains uh what we take to be uh most natural to us, what we most naturally take is that my mind is giving me an experience of the world that is not reducible just to quarks and leptons fizzing together, um, but that actually I have a first-person narrative experience of this world, and and therefore actually what Christians are saying, um, and what Christians have always been saying for thousands of years, uh actually makes best sense of ourselves and the scientific data. And uh yeah, I I enjoyed my chat. And uh where where we got to on the chat though, uh at the end, we're we're going to see um we're going to see a uh a clip from the very end of uh the interview is um this this idea that in science looking at the world as a machine is an increasingly narrow and and limited way of seeing the world. Um and that actually Newtonian physics, which just says, you know, force equals mass times acceleration, and what you can see, and you know, basically reality is like billiard balls bumping into each other. That that was helpful in getting the scientific enterprise off the ground. But the more we're learning about the world, the more we're seeing that actually that mechanical view of nature is of limited importance, and that actually more and more we're seeing that uh reality is uh to do with information and it's to do with with consciousness. So that uh even in quantum physics, um, people are talking about you know information and and space and time is emergent just from information. Really, really interesting kinds of things, or even in biology, they're talking about DNA. You just have a snooze for the next 30 seconds. Yeah, I'll see you at the end. I'll bring you back in once once I talk about, I don't know. Avengers.
SPEAKER_03I don't know, rage against your guitarists gone back to the 90s or so.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, so in biology also, you know, it seems to be all about DNA. Well, isn't that interesting that it all boils down to language? Um and in neuroscience, it it seems like theories of mind uh cannot simply be reduced to brain chemistry. Um and so there's a there's a real turn in the scientific community in the realm of physics and biology and neuroscience, um, a turn away from a mechanical view of the world towards uh a more organic view of the world, and a view of the world that is dependent on information and consciousness. Um that's where we get to in um my conversation with uh Sharon Direcks, and what it led me to thinking about is prayer. And so that that might be a a new idea for you. How do you get from neuroscience to prayer? Paul is about to find out. Yeah. So we'll have a look at this uh this this bit of the interview, and then we'll we'll have a look at uh actually how that mechanical view of the world um really kills your prayer life, and another nine killers to your prayer life, and how we from the Bible might fight against that. But first, let's have a look at this interview with Sharon Direcks. Not only your science, but also your your Christian experience of prayer, your Christian experience of faith, um the fact that we are not simply our brains, how's that gonna help you, Sharon? How's that gonna help us as Christians to walk out into the world?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that um firstly to say that there's so much more to me than just the physical, there's so much more to life than just the physical, there's more than you can see with your eyes, and therefore there are many things um to this world and to the inner world that we ourselves have that are important and that should be attended to. And you know, um earlier chapters talk about as having a soul, you can either feed your soul or you can starve it. Um, but actually, we are the most whole when we integrate all of these different areas. It also means that the mind is something to be used, you know. To be a Christian isn't to cease to be a thinking person, actually. Um the mind is a really important part of you, the uh the deepest expression of what it means to be human is to is to use your mind to be a one of the deepest anyway. And um I think ultimately what this is to is that we um this inner capacity, this capacity to relate not only to ourselves, not only to the physical world, but potentially to be on that means that there's a way that it wants to know me, that it wants to relate to me, and although we can understand the machinery a bit like the working in the mechanics of the radio very well using your science, that doesn't mean there isn't somebody broadcasting that might actually want her to relate and faculty exists because God has given us them to know him and to relate to him, and so um this is you know an encouragement to um seek God, to ask him if he's real, to to make himself known and and to engage with him, to pour out a heart to him, and to actually um yeah, to really pass the relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you use the analogy of the brain being more like an antenna to pick up a signal from beyond that is not a purely physical thing. And and of course, you know, what are we doing here? We are two conscious beings having a rational, you know, in your case, very rational, in my case, somewhat less rational discussion, using language and emotion and rhetoric and reason and and all these things. And what do you notice about all these things? They're totally immaterial. And uh I I've always always been struck by Keith Wards, sort of saying, what is what is most what is closest to me is an immaterial thing called my consciousness, which nobody can have a mechanical view of. And and it it seems like the most obvious fact about ourselves and about our world is actually a conscious immaterial reality. That's quite suggestive, isn't it? Absolutely. And even as a Christian, it's it's helped me just to think this week as I've read the book um about prayer, and just I I think so much of my prayer life suffers at the hands of a mechanical view of the world, and I think everything just grinds along according to higher laws of physics. So why pray? But what what if what if consciousness is far deeper? What if the mind of God and my mind in communion is a more powerful thing um than all the mechanics of the universe? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so thank you for writing this book. And I I think it's it's helped me, as I said, it's helped me to to pray, it's helped me to think about uh the world in a more Christian way, and I think it it'll help lots of Christians get on the front foot on this question of of neuroscience and consciousness because I I I think that the evidence is on our side.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So people get Am I Just My Brain by Sharon Direcks. Thanks so much. Thank you, Glenn.
SPEAKER_03Here we are, back again.
SPEAKER_01With the Renegade Master.
SPEAKER_03Now he's talking about 90s.
SPEAKER_01I'm in my prime here. So, yeah, great little book, Am I Just My Brain? Uh Sharon Dirac's uh a great length of a book, actually. Um the sub 40,000 word thing, the sort of uh, I guess a hundred and yeah, like a hundred and twenty pages. The sort of book that you can give to a friend who might be uh kind of interested in scientific issues like this, philosophical issues like this.
SPEAKER_03She does say, I think I don't know if she says it she didn't say in that bit, I think she said early on that she wanted to write a book that was kind of accessible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That kind of thing, you know. So it's not a it's not a textbook. Textbook in a sense. So, you know, I was gonna say it's not scholarly, it is in the sense that she's clearly a you know knows her stuff. Yeah. But it's it's an accessible book for the layman.
SPEAKER_01No footnotes, you know. And basically it's the kind of book I like to read, you know. And pictures, there are, there are definitely pictures here. And can I colour them in? Yes, you can. Um and um and every point that she makes is sort of mapped up with a visual kind of hook to wrap your head around. So when she talks about uh artificial intelligence, for instance, I mean that that is an issue that really this book speaks to because if you've got a mechanical view of consciousness, then you basically think our brains are computers. Therefore, a computer, if it's just got the right computing power, it will be just as conscious as you or I. Sure. And so, therefore, it's gonna be Terminator 2, it's gonna be the rise of the machines. We're back in the 90s, people. Come with me if you want to live. Exactly. It's the gospel. Right there, it's the gospel. But um your your fear, your fear about artificial intelligence will be hugely increased if you think that all it takes to be conscious is enough computing power.
SPEAKER_03And that once computers reach that level of complexity, then they will be on a par with the human being.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Whereas if not higher. If not higher, yeah, and and then and they'll they will therefore have agency and they will therefore want to take control, and they won't want to take orders from people, and you have you know the wars of whatever it was called. April I think it was it was April 21st, 2016 or something. Wasn't that gonna be the last the the the day the day of the Great War in the middle of the internet?
SPEAKER_03No, it was like 1997. Oh no, was it? The machines, yeah, when Skynet went live. Wow. If you know when Skynet went live, write it in the comments now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Jonah knows. We know that Jonah knows. So if you yeah, if you if you think that the brain is just a computer, then computers are going to become conscious. But she gives this great analogy called the Chinese room analogy, where imagine that you are in this sealed room and just little messages are passed to you, which are basically just Chinese characters, and you don't speak Chinese, but you match up the Chinese character against this wall chart that says, if it's that kind of squiggle, then you pass out this kind of Chinese character. And so you get passed in the Chinese character, you look up on the wall, you pick up that Chinese character, you put that in the output, and on the other side, the person who's passed in the Chinese character and receives back the other Chinese character might think that you understand Chinese. You know nothing about Chinese.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You're just very good at you know looking at symbols, and you get increasingly better at looking at symbols, and maybe after a while you can fool native Chinese speakers into thinking that you speak Chinese. You've got absolutely no clue about what what it is that you're doing. Um, it's just you're looking at the syntax, you're not looking at the semantics. And so that that's a So you're saying in the sense that you you still don't understand what it means.
SPEAKER_03Right. You're but you you can you could correctly write out stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you could you could correctly answer somebody's Chinese question with perfectly good Chinese coming out the other end, but it's not because you understand Chinese. It's only because you've got the rules that have been given to you. And you're you're just processing data. You're not understanding the meaning behind the data.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And that's what computers are doing. Sure. Yeah. Even when it looks like, you know, uh so the Turing test, the Alan Turing test, um, he was the guy who was um the the sort of the hero in the imitation game. Yeah, yeah. Cumberbatch. Cumberbatch. And um and uh oh the didn't the Times call him the greatest man of the 20th century or something? Because he basically sort of broke the Enigma code and helped, you know, win the war. Um but he had he developed a little test um for when we would know that kind of computing technology had attained some kind of consciousness, is is when it could fool a majority of people that they were talking to you know a real person. Rather rather than a bot. You know. Yeah. And you know, I don't know how many bots I am in conversation with. I went back and forth with a couple on Twitter today, and I did have to wonder. But um yeah. Even I'm just a Russian plant. It's all just circuitry behind the glasses, that's all it is. Um, but that fear becomes multiplied when you think that all all that the brain is, all that the human brain is, is computer software. Yeah. Um just you know, cranked up to 11. Um, so that's just an example of this book and and the way that it gives like a really helpful analogy that you can sort of grasp hold of. Um and that that kind of set my mind at rest about AI just for a bit. For a bit. For a bit. I'm still I'm still stockpiling the bait thing. Sure, yeah, yeah, you never know. Digging the bunker, but you know.
SPEAKER_03It's a good interview, though. It's I mean, that was what a few minutes of it, and it says 40-minute interview, and there's just loads of really good and helpful stuff in there, um, which is just pushing back against that idea of just everything being simply material and nothing else. Yeah. Um and there's lots of yeah, lots of bits that came out of it. Prayer as well as other things, so it's worth worth a look, that one. Yeah. I imagine we'll we can all were we releasing that as a podcast? Just the audio? Yeah, should we do that? We'll probably do that, yeah. Because yeah. Beats this conversation.
SPEAKER_01Um, let's let's talk about these ten prayer killers because the prayer killer number one. Um do we have the image of the prayer killers?
SPEAKER_03There it is. Prayer killers.
SPEAKER_01Prayer killers. Um We think that there's a mechanical world, right? We think that the world is a closed system that runs by itself. It just yeah, it uh the principle by which the world runs along is inherent to the system. And so, like, why pray? You're just you're just a gear on a machine.
SPEAKER_03So the world is just being wound up, right, set going, even if you don't want to use that terminology of someone winding it up. The world is just rolling by, cause and effect. Yeah. You can't really do anything about it, no one can. So, actually, what's the point in praying?
SPEAKER_01And so scientifically, that's kind of the view that we have. I think also, even kind of historically and politically, and just news-wise, that's the way I think of the world. Because all the news that I hear about is not about the miraculous growth of the church around the world. All the news that I hear about is about secular powers kind of fighting against each other and who's gonna win, and it's just a sort of a struggle for power. And and that's a little bit mechanistic as well. So, you know, even when it comes to politics and everything else, I I kind of am fed a constant diet of a mechanical world. Um and then if if the world is kind of mechanical, then there's no place for thanksgiving, in you know, because I get my daily bread, not because there's a father in heaven who's miraculously providing with me with manna. I get my daily bread just because, I don't know, there's a lever and just the conveyor belt keeps going, and and so you know, thanksgiving um you know drops out of of my life, and and petition drops out of my life, um, just asking God for things because it just seems like the world is mechanical. Um, and against that, you know, I read Philippians chapter 4, verse 6, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. And that's fascinating, isn't it? The Lord is near. Um, you know, we we think that God is distant because the the world is just a closed machine. But no, the Lord is near, so do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. And always when I try to remember Philippians 4, verse 6, I always remember those two little words with thanksgiving. Um I think that is diagnosing a problem that I think that it's a mechanical world, it's all just going to come to me anyway. And so I don't give thanks to a a God who is at work and graciously providing for me just the way that he provided for the Israelites in the wilderness and gave them miraculous daily bread. So, prayer killer number one, it's a mechanical world. Not true. Not true.
SPEAKER_03And prayer kill so prayer killer number two is the idea that well, we just have a mechanical god, and so you know, I suppose the first one, mechanical world, you would say you if you had a non-religious that that could come out of a very non-religious view, I suppose, as well as our religious world. Maybe this one is more religious that we would say, well, you know, God is in control, he's got it all laid out, so if it's all kind of laid out, can is it what's the point of praying? You know, why what's the point of praying to a God who has already kind of laid things out? Can we really change God's mind? Right. You know, God knows whether he's gonna heal this person or that person, he knows whether you will get that job or not get that job, whatever it might be, because they are that university. So Why pray? Why pray? Yeah. We were thinking about you know, your father, Matthew 6, 8, your father knows what you need before you ask him. And that kind of makes you sit there and sometimes and go, why do you need to ask then? Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01If he knows, yeah, like it seems uh That seems like it seems like Jesus is giving us a prayer killer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Father knows what you need before you ask. Therefore pray. What? Therefore don't bother praying, surely. But then therefore pray our father.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which is you know, not a mechanical God, you know. Um and not not a clockwork god, you know, who's wound all things up, but a father who is presiding over a household. And he knows what you need, so ask. You know, so if if he's a father and not a mechanic, then you know.
SPEAKER_03I wonder whether your father knows what you need before you ask him. Just wondering that. Is it is it isn't it maybe that's not in the sense so much of um I mean God does know what you're gonna say, obviously, but it's not maybe coming at it from that angle so much, but like when you uh ask, God knows when you ask for something, is that something you need or just something you want? And he is pleased to answer the things that he knows you need. Yeah. Rather than saying there's like a future knowledge that he has. I mean, but we're not denying he has a future knowledge, but maybe that's not the answer to the thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Not just knowledge of future events. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He he knows you and he knows you as his child who has needs. Yeah, absolutely. So we think of a mechanical world, not true. We think of a mechanical god. Not true. Then thirdly, this kind of mechanical prayer. And it was interesting, a few uh podcasts ago, we spoke about uh a Pew research survey in the States from I think 2017, and they asked a whole bunch of people, do you pray? And um some people said yes, and some people said no. But then I think it was a majority of people who said they don't pray were then asked, Do you talk to God? Yeah. And they said, Oh yeah, yeah, all the time. Yeah, talk to God, sure. Just don't pray. And like whatever that thing is when you're talking to God but you don't think you're praying, like, probably do that. That's that's probably good praying if you think you're talking to God. Because so often we think of of prayer as a routine, and in and you know, routines can be good because we are distracted individuals, as we will see. Um, but we can mistake the act of you know praying and having your quiet time with actually talking to God.
SPEAKER_03Or we feel that we're yeah, or we're not talking we're not praying unless we have that specific moment, you know. Yes, yes. So so that there are there are things that we do which are good practices, I suppose, in in prayer, and the way we do prayer sometimes in church, or maybe the idea of the the the quiet time, those might not necessarily be always be bad things, but if you get into your mindset that this is what prayer is, and you know, but you know, people we you've probably heard loads of times people say things like, I had a really good prayer time, you know, what what does that mean, you know, that that they had a really good prayer time? What uh what what does a bad prayer time look like if you're pr if you're speaking to God? You know, I I just want to pull some of those things apart, you know. I wonder whether we I mean I think was it was it when we we were looking about this, you're saying people say stuff like I really need to work on my prayer life. Right, yeah. Um again, like like that's uh uh a separate thing.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, like it's to thingify prayer, like to make prayer itself into a thing. Whereas prayer is prayer is a description of what happens when you're talking to God. So it would be it would be like when somebody says, you know, I need to work on a communication problem that I have with my spouse, you'd be like, okay, I I understand what you mean, but probably what you mean is you need to like talk to your spouse. Like to work on a communication issue is is different to actually you know talking. And we understand what people mean when they say I'm working on a communication issue, but that's that those are words to describe the communication itself. And I think so often we can get caught up in prayer as though it's the communication issue, and I need to improve my technique.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like like it I think it's easy to fall into this thing, isn't it, that you know, that prayer in the moment when you kind of just say, like, you know, you know, Lord, you know, help me. Right. Like off the cuff, you know, maybe in your head, in the middle of a situation, it feels like it's different to I've sat down with my Bible for 20, 30 minutes and had a real quiet, reverent whatever it is. Yes. But really, if you're praying, you're you're praying, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get we'll get on to sort of praying continually and all that kind of stuff. Because, you know, I mean Spurgeon was once it's it's one of those things where you wonder whether Spurgeon really said it or whether it's been attributed to Spurgeon after the fact, but he was asked, you know, how long he prays for, and he and he said, Oh, about 20 minutes. He said uh I w I wouldn't have thought that I pray for longer than 20 minutes, and the person was like really shocked, and then he said, But I wouldn't have thought that I go for longer than 20 minutes without praying.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like, yeah. Um so prayer is not mechanical because God is not mechanical, the world is not mechanical, our minds are not mechanical. Um we have a consciousness, and this is this is this is why all these thoughts have sort of been been prompted by by this book. We we have this consciousness, and we are in communion with uh the mind of God, and that that that is what prayer is about, and it's this continual thing. So let's let's try and get away from mechanical world, mechanical god, mechanical prayer. Um, and then what's what's number four? What are we up to?
SPEAKER_03So number four is that butler God. So that's one of our prayer killers, the idea of God as just being a bit of a butler. So it's the sense that sometimes we when we pray, we are we're almost just kind of saying, God, I'm doing this, and we're just asking for God to bless what we're already doing. So we're not asking, we're not really seeking God's will on things or anything like that. It's it's really just uh here's what I'm doing, please give me the rubber stamp, and yeah, off I go with my own plans, yeah. Um, and I can feel good about my plans because now I've given them to the Lord. Um But he better give them right back to me in exactly the form that I gave them to him, are we? Yeah, yeah. So so in a sense that I mean we're calling it prayer killers that that could start off in a sense that that might kill your prayer eventually, that people might people might have that attitude to begin with, and then just think, well, at the end of the day, I'm just doing what I wanted to do anyway, so well again, why am I bothering doing this? Because all I'm doing is doing what I wanted to do. But you're pretty sure your butler God might be able to help you. Yeah, I mean it'd be good to have the blessing of the deity, you know, like the divine butler.
SPEAKER_01As we snap our fingers. You know, it just reminds me of Proverbs 16. There's all sorts of stuff all throughout the Proverbs about this. I mean, the the key verse in Proverbs, you know, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him, know him, and he will direct your steps. You know, the in all your ways, acknowledge him. You know, that's that's the main thing about prayer. Um not not making sure that God makes your path go the way that you want it to go. The the real issue is knowing God. But in Proverbs 16, it says, uh, to humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the Lord comes the proper answer of the tongue. Verse 2, all a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord. Verse 3, commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. I think that's interesting. We we I think we misunderstand that. You know, it's like commit to the Lord whatever you do and he will establish your plans. We imagine that that that is if we're sweet with God, he will make sure that our own desires happen. Whereas actually what you do is you you you put into God's hands whatever will happen, and he will establish your plans. You know, he he will do it. I think that's what it's saying. It's it's like you you put into God's hands, look, whatever whatever you want to happen, by will be done, and then he will establish your plans. Um and then in verse 9 of Proverbs 16, in their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Um so just yeah, just a reminder that God is not there to rubber stamp our own desires, and that's not that's not what prayer is about. So that's the fourth uh prayer killer, butler God. Uh and then the fifth prayer killer, uh punitive god. Um this is the God who is just waiting to um waiting to give it to us for for our you know our sins. And um I I honestly think one of the one of the the tricks that the devil pulls, he's he's got this twofold trick. And the first is to say, uh sin is nothing. It's you know, it's it's it's fun, it's great, just do it, it's it's a tiny little thing, God won't even mind. And then as soon as you do it, he's like, that is the unforgivable sin. Yes. You've come too far now. Oh dear. And you know, and and the way the devil whispers into my ear is he he's always tell the devil's always telling me that I'm I'm only two weeks away from a proper relationship with God. You know, just two weeks of really, you know, tightening up my my walk with Christ and being sufficiently sorry and you know, and then at some point at the end of May, I'll be able to go back into God's presence. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Once you've tidied yourself up, prettified yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think it's it's it I guess thinking, what is it that kills the prayer? It's it's the guilt thing, isn't it? Yeah. It's it's the the feeling that you can't come to God in prayer because of X, Y, and Z. Um, and it's it's it's the line in before the throne of God above, isn't it? You know, when Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within. That's what we that's what we're talking about here, I think, isn't it? Yeah. That we you know we feel such a sense of unworthiness. You think, oh God wouldn't, you know, how how can I even show my face before God, that kind of thing. Right. I think that's probably the the angle there.
SPEAKER_01And it's so interesting in the in the Lord's Prayer, you don't begin with forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. You know, you're being our father. You know. So your gaze is not on yourself to begin with.
SPEAKER_03Um it's interesting, I've been reading Andrew Wilson's book, Spirit and Sacrament, and like something that struck me is it just I'd never really thought about it was he was talking about the shape of a service and how it's unused he said it seems odd to start with confession because it that it seem it it sets the tone incorrectly about how we approach God. Right. Um and we should have it later on. But yeah, I was thinking so often in our kind of C of E liturgy, confession is right near the start of the service, just like almost like we've got to make ourselves right with God, and then we can do this thing. Yeah, yeah. And yeah. But when you think about like the Lord's Prayer, like you say, you're starting with the relationship of father and child.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Which is which is very different, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. And that's actually meant to shape the Anglican service, so you know it's meant to be in the prayer book that there's there's the welcome and there's the adoration to begin with. But yeah, so often, and I think in particular in prayer, so often we just think, right, first things first.
SPEAKER_03We've got to wipe the slate clean first, so we can so once we Once I've atoned for my acts. We've we've shown that we're penitent and you know we've repented of our sin, therefore now we can come to God and maybe expect some blessing, yeah, um, or ask it, dare to ask him. Yes. Now that the stuff has been wiped away.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um wretched that I am, and and and all that stuff's true at some point and needs to be acknowledged at some point. Um but it just it doesn't seem like it's the first thing on the mind of so many biblical prayers. So many biblical prayers um come before their father with great thanksgiving um before they acknowledge their sin. Um so yeah, this this idea of a punitive god, that's that's utterly a a prayer killer, no doubt about that. Um and then number six, what's number six? Sergeant Major Gods. Yeah. I don't know what everyone else's um favourite prayer or favorite verse on prayer is, but um I can just see on the comments we we now know when it was that Skynet went live. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Jonah Jacob. August 29th. August 29th, 1977. Yeah, Jonah, he did not have to go Google that. He just he just knew. He just knew. Good man, good man. I don't know what other people's uh favourite verse on on prayer is. I think mine might be Matthew 18, verse 3. Um, you know, Jesus says, unless you change and become like little children, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. And that always like completely changes my attitude, because usually when I come to prayer, it's like I'm a weary soldier coming before a sergeant major god. And and I'm, you know, reporting for duty, sort of thing. And and Jesus says that's that's not the way you come. You you come like a little child to your father who knows how to give good gifts to his children, and just the yeah, so once again, just coming before Abba Father. Um again, before we talk about anything we've done wrong, and before we talk about anything we've done right, um yeah, we don't come before the punitive god, we don't come become before the the sergeant major god, we come before our father as little children. Um and again that's working against the mechanical god and the mechanical world view of things. I mean that that is just wearisome, you know. But to come as a little child uh to a father who gives good gifts, um that will be a a prayer enabler, a prayer giver life giver of lifer? What's the opposite of a prayer killer? A prayer resurrector. Let's let's go with that. Bertha. Prayer birther. Prayer birtha.
SPEAKER_03Are you a bertha? Yeah, okay. Great. Uh and so there we go. That what what number was that? Number six? Yeah. So number seven is our distracted hearts. So just yeah, just distractions of life. So, you know, we were saying another thing that kills prayer is just the feeling that we've got so much on that you've got to stop. Yeah. You know, we can't stop to do any prayer. Um, you know, we let we can probably overlap at some that will overlap onto number nine a little bit, I think, about quiet time. Yes. Maybe because you know, we we have this idea of what we should be doing, what prayer should look like. Um there is that feeling, isn't there, that you know, you g well, you wake up in the morning and I I wake up in the morning and it's like, oh my word, the kids have got to go to school, we've got to get up, we've got to get out the house, we've got to get this ready, we've got to pack bags, we've got to yada yada yada, get off, you know, yeah, so so so on and so forth. And before you know it, the day is gone on other things. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's about a world that is mechanical, or I often think of the the um the idea of plate spinning. You know, I feel like my life is like plates that I've got to keep spinning, keep spinning, keep spinning, keep spinning.
SPEAKER_03Are you still on the sticks?
SPEAKER_01Have you got a machine gun? So the motor just falling down. Oh well. Okay, I need to become a plate crackhead or something. Let it go. Yeah, let it go. Man. But I'm always struck therefore by John chapter 15 and Jesus saying, You are the branches, I am the vine. Um, be fruitful in me. And that's just such a different vision for life. To to connect to Jesus, to make your home in Jesus and his love, to let his words make their home in me. And then you become fruitful. And the thing about fruitful is fruitfulness is multiplicatory. It is, you know, there's this exponential growth to fruitfulness that you could never really plan for. Um when it's mechanical, it's it's only addition. You can just add one thing on top of another, on top of another. But to be fruitful is to multiply. Um, but it's a totally different mindset, and it's not about spinning a hundred different plates. It's about one thing is necessary. You know, talk about somebody who's distracted, you know, Martha in Luke chapter 10. Martha is distracted by much serving, distracted, distracted, distracted. And what does Jesus say? You know, Mary's chosen the better portion, you know, only one thing was needed. What's the what's the one thing that was needed? Well, sit at Jesus' feet and learn from him. Um so in the midst of a whole world that's trying to distract you and pull you apart, um, a great a great verse, uh, Psalm 86, verse 11. Uh Lord, give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name, an undivided heart. I think that's there's a there's a word for a social media world. Um give me an undivided heart. And and it's a it's a chicken and egg thing, isn't it? Because our distractedness stops us from praying. But if we can learn to pray, it'll help with the distractedness too. Um because we'll actually we'll actually connect with something solid, um, something actually life-giving. And therefore, hopefully the tug of a thousand distractions becomes that little bit less when you realize that you can you can just spend time sitting at the Lord's feet and connecting with Him. Um maybe that helps with your distracted heart. Number eight, here's another prayer killer. Um, we think that prayer is a thing. Um I'm always thinking prayer is a thing. Um a thing that I need to work on. So it's like again, like to use the the marriage analogy, it would be like, I need to work on my communication skills with with my wife rather than I need to talk to her. You know? Um I need to get better at the technique of prayer rather than I just need to talk to Jesus. You know? Um and one of the one of the ways that we you know think of prayer as as uh a thing uh is uh I don't know, I I guess quiet times would be one thing, uh where we kind of um yeah, the the sum total of my prayer life is you know between seven and seven twenty in the morning on the end of my bed with my Bible open in my lap. That's that's the thing called prayer. And if someone and if someone if if I'm made guilty about my prayer life, that's the thing I think about. You know. Sure. So I don't I only feel guilty about you know between the hours of you know 7 a.m. and 7 When really my prayerlessness is a far deeper thing, actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I think and and like so is the the overlap with other things, maybe that's the that feeling of what prayer should look like. Yeah. You know, that feeling of your your quiet time in the morning of you know, sequestered away from everything else. Right. That's when real prayer happens. And if you're not having that, then you're not really doing it right. Um and is that different to the prayer it feels, doesn't it? Like it's different to the prayer thrown up as you drive the car or or whatnot, or as you you you just throw a quick prayer up in the air.
SPEAKER_01Um I mean there there is a time for going into your room, shutting a room. In the same way that there's a time to have a date night with your wife, you know. Um you know, probab probably if you if you say if you if your wife says you haven't taken me out in the last year, and you say, Yeah, but I'm always asking you to pass the salt. She might have a point at that, you know, at that point. But um, but yeah, yeah, it's it's always making prayer into the thing that needs working on, rather than prayer as a name for uh this aspect of my walk with Jesus. Um so yeah, prayer prayer as a thing by itself that you work on, uh as opposed to a description of your relationship with Jesus. Uh that could be a prayer killer. Um and then number nine, prayer is pious. Did we did we settle on pious as as number nine? Uh yes, we did. Prayer is pious. Um and and and again, it it becomes um it becomes that spiritual barometer that tells me I'm a good Christian. I'm a good Christian today, because I I remember to have my quiet time. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then even that that word, quiet time. Why is it a quiet time? You know, um Andrew Wilson, second, second shout out for today. We haven't even mentioned Jordan Peterson. Ding. Um two to one to Andrew, Andrew Wilson. But he um he's always pointing back to George Muller, um that great sort of uh Christopher Bristol. Was it did he have anything to do with the yoga? I doubt it. I very much doubt it. He had he had all the orphanages in in Bristol, but he he said his his one um uh his one great duty every day was to make sure his soul was happy in the Lord. Um, to make my soul happy in the Lord. So Andrew Wilson has tried to get um happy times rather than quiet times trending among Christians. I don't think he's been that successful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Have you had your happy time today? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Same. Whereas Paul, he's just off having his happy time today.
SPEAKER_01He's in his happy place. But you know, if if that became how we refer to prayer and as opposed to my quiet time, then I think that would that would lead to a different kind of spirituality. Um and and therefore, you know, why do I pray? Well, I guess it's good to quiet my soul before the Lord. As opposed to why do you pray? Because I want to be happy, you know, because I enjoy Jesus and I I like spending time with him. Um and just just the idea of quiet time. I I always go back to 1 Samuel 1, where Hannah is praying at the temple, um, praying for a child, and um in uh 1 Samuel 1, verse 13, Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Eli the high priest thought she was drunk. And I just think that's really interesting. A cultural expectation when a Jew prays, they're meant to be praying out loud, right? It's not quiet at all.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and if you're just moving your lips and your voice isn't being heard, you're you're drunk. You're like you must be drunk. Um surely prayer is out loud. And then you go to Revelation 1, and you know, when it says, Blessed is uh blessed are all who read the words of this book, it's the word for reads aloud, the words of this book. There's a blessing for reading your Bible aloud. So, you know, we retreat into ourselves to have our quiet time. Silent prayer, silent reading. And in the Bible, it's meant to be, even if you're by yourself, you read out loud and you pray out loud. Um, and I I think, you know, we've spoken about distractedness. You know, one thing that absolutely helps me against a distracted mind when I'm praying is just speak it out. You know, say it out loud. The the the the ability for your mind to drift at that point is massively reduced. Um if you don't necessarily have a quiet time, but a raucous, happy time. Glenn's having his loud times. And then number 10, what's the uh what's the tenth thing that stops us praying?
SPEAKER_03Prayer is powerless, I guess ultimately ultimately we don't actually think it will make any difference. Yeah. So why why bother? I guess that's the the thing that can stop people. Which I which I suppose ties in already with some of the ones we've we've talked about, you know, the idea that you know either it's a mechanical world and it's just plodding along to the beat of the drum or there's a mechanical god and he's doing what he wants to do, regardless of what we do. I guess it kind of ties in with that a little bit, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um everything's gonna happen already. Almost the least the least useful thing you could possibly do would be to pray. You know. Um remember someone saying, I haven't seen the film, but I think uh I I'm remembering a Rico sermon where he talks about uh Clint Eastwood uh as a cowboy riding into town uh in Mexico and there's a there's a padre there, and uh and the padre says uh says to this gun slinging, you know, Clint Eastwood, uh, is there anything you can do? Is there anything I can do, Clint? You know, to help save the day. And Clint Eastwood said, You could pray. And then he rides off into the distance, you know, with this that smirk saying, you know, what a useless thing you could possibly do. You you could pray, ha ha ha. But uh according to Prayers and Thoughts the thoughts and prayers, the kids and prayers on uh on the internet, sending thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers, what a useless thing to do. And then James 5, verse 16 says the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Did you hear that? The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. It actually gets stuff done in the world. Um and if God is a father who knows what you w need before you ask, and if we are little children, and if this world is not a machine, but it is actually the household of our father in heaven, then the most powerful and effective thing we can do is pray.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know. Um but it takes a real mentality shift, I guess. Um and I I just wonder what you guys think. Um what what are the big prayer killers for you? Uh what are the big verses that help you to fight back against the prayer killers? Um do keep the conversation going in the comments. We'd love to uh love to hear from you. Do you have any final thoughts on prayer? What's what's gonna get us praying, Paul? What's gonna get used to the phone?
SPEAKER_03Well, I I think like with I think like in the same vein of of like what when we say why how do we get people evangelizing and shaming the gospel, yeah. It has to be it's really an overflow, isn't it? Of something else. Like it comes from within. What I mean is that you can't just think, oh, my relationship with God isn't very good at the moment, therefore I can drum it back into existence by doing some good prayer. Whereas actually it's it's it's the knowing where you knowing you're in relationship, knowing who you are in Christ, and knowing the our Father part of that you know, prayer that then brings it out naturally, I suppose, more so. Yes. Um why we always i in lots of aspects of life, it's it's it's if you've got a a sin in your life or or you want to be better at evangelism or more passionate about evangelism, or you want to be a better prayer, it's always about going back to the gospel, isn't it? Yes. Like the gospel is the thing that teaches godliness, you know, trains us for righteousness and all that stuff. Um it's it's always going back to the gospel that brings those changes and changes you from the inside out and stuff, rather than oh, I better just make sure I you know I'm gonna find five people today who I can share the gospel with. Yeah. Because I feel like I need to do this.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um rather than that that that's a very mechanical approach, isn't it? Yes. Um rather than it just flowing naturally out of the relationship you already have. So I think you know, prayer, I think prayer's on a s in a similar thing, isn't it? That it has to flow out of something else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's the chief exercise of faith. That's what Calvin said. The chief exercise of faith, which means it's it's the first thing that flows from your trust of Jesus. Um so yeah, if if our prayer life is going awry, well, let's get back to faith. Let's get back to trusting Jesus. That yeah, in myself I have no right to come before a holy God, but in my great high priest, the Son of the Father, has made me a child and filled me with the spirit of adoption who cries out, Abba Father. And now I just say Amen to Christ's perfect prayer, wrapped up in the love of God. Um, now pray. Um, yeah, it's it's it's it is that organic overflow of the heart. Um so let's let's be praying. We we said on a former um podcast that's you know what one of the ways that our evangelism goes wrong is that we we talk to people about God more than we talk to God about people. Um and I I sincerely believe um that the thing that will make our evangelism powerful and effective uh is prayer. Um so let's be uh returning to the Lord and um and coming in the name of Jesus to our great Father. So next week we uh uh are going to show uh an interview with Peter Lightheart. I'm gonna uh record that tomorrow. If you uh if you know who Peter Lightheart is, he's uh fantastic. And uh if you don't know who he is, uh it'll be great to introduce you. He's still fantastic. He's still fantastic. Just because he's not in your purvey, he's not subjectively. So um if you do know who he is and you um have a great question that you'd like me to ask him, I am asking him tomorrow. Uh and I'll be uh interviewing him. And uh next Tuesday I won't be around. Paul might be, but uh we will we will think about what to do uh next week. But we will definitely have Peter Lightheart next week. And the week after that, we will actually have uh Rebecca McLoughlin, uh the author of Confronting Christianity, um, a terrific uh read. And um she'll be uh answering 12 hard questions for the world's largest religion. So um some great interviews. Sharon Derricks and then Peter Lightheart and then Rebecca McLachlan. Just keeps on coming. We're spoiling you. We're spoiling you. Um so that'll do us for now, and um yeah, stay tuned for the podcast on Friday. And uh yeah, until next week. See you soon. See you soon. Bye.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, bye.