The After Sermon /// Is prayer more about an outcome or a relationship?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

In this episode of The After Sermon, Daniel sits down with Doug to continue the conversation around prayer and petition. Together, they unpack why prayer so often becomes a last resort instead of a first response, and how Jesus’ model of prayer was always meant to shape something deeper than our circumstances.

Doug reflects on how practicing adoration, confession, lament, and thanksgiving has been reshaping his own relationship with God throughout this series—and why petition flows differently when it comes from a dependent soul instead of a controlling one. The conversation explores surrender, disappointment, unanswered prayer, and the tension of learning to release outcomes we desperately want to hold onto.

More than anything, this episode centers on one powerful idea: prayer isn’t ultimately about outcome management—it’s about relationship development.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full message that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the after sermon where we get to sit down with the communicator from the weekend. And this time it's Doug Miller. What's up, guys? Thanks so much for being here. You betcha, man. Appreciate it. All right. Petition. Petition. You said something that was kind of well, very interesting. You said that it's often the place we start, but then you also said it can feel like a plan B sometimes. Yeah. Explain that to me.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Yeah, well, I think what I was trying to get at there is that so many times uh we find ourselves doing everything that we can to try and deal with our circumstances and putting our own effort in and all of those things, and then resort to prayer when that stuff's not working out. And the idea was what if what if instead of it being plan B, once we've exhausted our own effort, energy, and know-how and whatever else, that we started with prayer instead of wait waiting until there's like some deeper level of desperation for divine intervention.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, I know totally. I think something that really stood out to me was, and you could just tell the excitement in your voice and the way that you kind of approach it was the way that this is building. This is when the disciples asked Jesus to teach us to pray, like he didn't just like go straight to okay, well, like you know, ask for your daily bread and whatever. Like you said, you said that there's this like pattern and it informs petition. Yeah. Talk to me about like where that excitement came from, and as that kind of um idea started to kind of unfold for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

That's a great question. I first of all I would say it's like things that he's doing in me. Yeah. So yeah, it's like even though we've heard the Lord's prayer before, to really start unpacking it and to think about it and to process the implications of what Jesus said into my prayer practice, like boy, I you know, I I have not been thoughtful enough about adoration. Yeah. And so as I write in my journal prayers of adoration and really try and focus in some more on that over the last several weeks, it's doing something in me to have this connection to who he really is before I pray is so critical. Yeah. And when we don't have that right, I don't think our prayers will be right. Um, and the same would be true with confession that many times we feel apprehensive to come before the Lord for whatever it is because we feel like we failed. We feel like we've fallen short and we're just really aware of that. And the enemy works us over there too. Like, why in the world will God listen to you? Or you don't deserve his help anyway, or whatever it might be. Sure. That we carry that stuff then into our times of prayer, or it prevents us from praying, which is exactly what I believe the enemy would want. Like somehow take the legs out of praying, and then we feel like we don't deserve his help, so we're not gonna pray. So I think that's important. And lament is another one. You know, I've had folks say, you know, I prayed like crazy and it didn't seem to do any good. And I'm angry at God now and and I'm confused and I'm frustrated and asking, where were you in this situation? Why do I feel abandoned? Why do I feel as though you don't hear my prayer? You don't care. And when we learn to lament, it just begins giving words to the things that we're feeling and an opportunity to express in prayer our frustration with God. I think that's just really good theology that then becomes practice. Otherwise, we don't understand how it all fits together when things don't work out the way that we wanted them to. Yeah. And then, you know, you take that next step like uh last week when Michelle was talking about Thanksgiving. I just forget, bro. I forget what God did. And sometimes I approach him with my requests kind of sheepishly without a reminder of how powerful he really is. Yeah. And so I've just in my life, I've felt like the momentum of my prayer times building when we're expanding our prayers beyond just this moment where I bring my request to him. And so what I think happens is when we walk through what Jesus told us to do in the Lord's Prayer and we get to the time of petition, we're coming in a whole different place, a different frame of mind, a different um resolve in our soul. And it gives us this opportunity, I believe, to pray differently. That's been my experience. And I'm really excited about our folks getting there as we learn to expand kind of some of the things that we're expressing to God in prayer, always remembering what it's really doing is something in me. And so often we think I'm gonna pray, hoping that it'll change my circumstance. And like I said tonight, God it wants to do some changing in me. And that's the series has been for me. So that's where you're feeling a little bit of that excitement as it builds. I think it's pretty important.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

No, we love that. We love that. So something you said about petition, I think was it hit me. It was petition becomes the natural response of a dependent soul. And it just reminded me of we're talking about um, you know, if Jesus was right about God, about life, about the soul, it only makes sense to rearrange your life around everything that he said is true. And a dependent soul, I think so often petition can be us trying to control our situations and and almost like outcome management. And yet when you position yourself as a dependent soul on everything that the father can um that everything the father is to you, like it really just pos sets your posture in a different spot. And so um the thing I want to kind of ask you about as we kind of wrap up our time here is the three prayer prompts bring, align, and release. And I think sometimes we can be good about bringing, we can be good about bringing things, and then the alignment piece can kind of feel like okay, like it can almost feel formulaic. Can you help us help us like unpack like how to not turn that into a formula?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah I I think it's the again, as you started, the posture of our heart that says, God, I've got this stuff in my life that I'm concerned about or that's weighing me down, or I've got a friend that desperately needs your help. And and yet when we understand again, all that he's doing to continue, what he cares most about is our hearts and our souls. And and um, when we pray for a certain outcome that we would prefer, this idea of surrendering ourselves to his plan and his will, I think is important. So here I think it's very, very okay to say, This is what I wish you would do. Yeah, and if I had my preference, this is what I would want your power at work in my life to accomplish. But like Jesus prayed, not my will, but your will be done. And when we get to that place, and it's not just lip service, it's not just formulaic, but it comes from a posture that says, you know what, more than anything else, God, I want your will to be done. And as much as I wish the outcome looked like, A, B, or C, what I want most is for your work to be done in me and your will to be done in these circumstances. And I I really believe that that is the posture that must that we must develop. It's not gonna come naturally, right? Because we actually want it to work out the way we want it.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Well, and I think to me, like that was out of the three prayer prompts, I think release hit the hardest because that can sometimes feel like the biggest letdown if our heart posture isn't prepared for that re-actual releasing of what the outcome is that we want. Um, last thing, and you had said you've been what God has been doing in you has really been something through the series. I feel like the thing that hit me the most today was, and I wrote it down as a prayer isn't outcome management, it's relationship development. And I think that that was such a cool way for you to tie back to like Jesus' prayer life was all about his relationship with his father. And um I just think that's so cool that you brought everything back to that very simplistic point of like this is just God wanting to be in relationship with us. So thanks for doing that. Yeah, you betcha. Appreciate it. All right, guys, you know the drill. If you want to hear the entire sermon that this discussion was based on, you can head to our YouTube channel and get it wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, we'll see ya. See you guys.