“Prayer changes things,” people say. It also changes us. The latter goal is the more imperative. The primary purpose of prayer is to bring us into such a life of communion with the Father that, by the power of the Spirit, we are increasingly conformed to the image of the Son…None of of us will keep up a life of prayer unless we are prepared to change. We will either give it up or turn it into a little system that maintains the form of godliness but denies the power of it–which is the same thing as giving it up.
When we begin to walk with God, He graciously and marvelously answers our feeble, egocentric prayers. We think, “This is wonderful. God is real after all!” In time, however, when we try to push this button again, God says to us, “I would like to be more than your Provider. I also want to be your Teacher and your Friend. Let me lead you to a more excellent way. I want to free you of the greed and avarice, the fear of hostility that make your life one great sorrow…” Each day in a new and living way the brooding Spirit of God teaches us. As we begin to follow these nudgings of the Spirit, we are changed from the inside out.”
Richard Foster in Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 57.
What will prayer look like in your life after Lent?
Don’t keep the form without the function! The form is prayer, the function is our transformation, and the agent of that change is the Holy Spirit. When we let God have His way in us, the Spirit produces the fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control” in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). This happens as we follow the “nudgings of the Spirit.” In plain language specifically related to generosity, we won’t be any more generous after Lent if we don’t submit to the work of the Spirit in our lives.
Father in Heaven, have Your way in each of us. As our Provider, transform our greed into generosity. As our Teacher, show us the more excellent way and help us walk in it. And as our Friend, move us from fear to faith by your Holy Spirit. Do all this we ask in the name of our risen Savior Jesus. Amen.