Welcome to the daily disciple podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus. Good morning everyone and welcome to the daily podcast and welcome to the season of the podcast. We're talking about prayer. We're talking about diving deeper in our relationship with Jesus, experiencing the depths of Jesus and the fulfillment and satisfaction that is only found there.
And so welcome. Good morning. We're going to be in Psalm 46 this morning. And the crescendo of this Psalm will probably be familiar to you.
We'll get there in a moment. But the title of the podcast today is Stop Trying. Stop trying. When it comes to prayer, we need to stop trying.
We need to stop trying so hard. Ironically, often we shoot ourselves in the foot in relationships and encounters with other people because we're just trying so darn hard. Like on a date, we try so hard that we miss the moment and we miss the event because we're trying so hard to do this or to do that or whatever. On Christmas morning, we're trying so hard to post and capture the moment that we tend to miss the moment because we're trying so hard in an interview or an appointment or whatever.
We're trying so hard to impress or to say the right thing. We end up not impressing anyone, including ourselves. And I think a good word for trying too hard is the word pressure. And we put so much pressure on ourselves.
We have such high expectations on ourselves and others. Pressure and expectations are just not helpful. We're trying so hard and when it comes to prayer, I think we're trying too hard and we need to stop trying so hard. Now I admit that's an odd thing to say because I mean, aren't we supposed to try hard?
You know, didn't Paul say, you know, beat your body into submission. Didn't Jesus spend regular times in prayer? Sometimes all night. So, you know, try hard.
Well, let me put it this way. The only thing that I would encourage us to try hard at is to set aside a time for prayer. I think we will have to try hard to do that. But once that time starts, I think we need to immediately stop trying in prayer.
It's like, you know, going on a date or even dating your spouse, you're probably going to need to try hard to plan that date, put it on a calendar, you know, to prioritize that over other things, work or whatever it might be. So try hard to get to the date. But once the date starts, I think we need to stop trying and just be in the moment and just be still and we're going to come back to being still in just a moment. Same with prayer.
I think we do need to try hard to get prayer on the calendar, to prioritize it, you know, to go to that place of prayer. But once we get to that place of prayer, we must stop trying. We must cease effort and be aware of pressure and expectation and how that can really ship rec prayer and relationship in general. Because ironically, I think that effort and pressure and expectation have short circuited a beautiful life of prayer more than anything else has.
And I think we may should think about that for a minute. There might be other things but effort and pressure and expectations and trying hard could be the greatest nemesis when it comes to the simplicity and the wonderfulness and the relaxation and the enjoyment of prayer. You know, when we bring self-help to prayer, we turn prayer into something that it's not. So I think the invitation is to stop trying to let it be, what it is to relax, to be still, to cease from effort.
God is not looking for you or for me to try in prayer but to simply be in prayer. And Psalm, the Psalms are amazing for this prayer journey. I thought about just doing a psalm each morning just as the text for this season of the podcast and maybe we'll look at some other psalms. But Psalm 46, it starts in verse one, like God is our refuge.
God is our strength. And as we continue to read the psalms, the Lord Almighty is our fortress. Verse seven, verse eight, come and see what the Lord has done. Verse nine, he makes wars cease.
He breaks the bow. You know, it's all about God and God's effort and God's strength and God's this and God that in verse 10, here's the crescendo. He says, be still and know that I am God. And you may recognize that verse, be still and know that I am God.
I am the God of Jacob. I am before. Be still, just be still. Just stop trying for a moment.
Just relax. Just be still cease from effort and know that I am God. It's about God's strength. He's the fortress.
I think that the key or one of the key is the prayer. He's being still and refused to try and to be in the moment. And I think this is important. Let's make the effort to get there.
Let's make the effort to, like a date with someone we care about, let's make the effort to get it on the calendar, to carve out time, to maybe even say, notice some other things that are vying for our time so we can have a burning yes for times of prayer. But once we get to those times, I think we're to stop. And I think it's essential. And maybe prayer is not even an activity.
It's just simply a state of being without pressure, without expectation, without performance anxiety, without putting on a front or putting on a face, without needing to talk, if you feel pressure to talk normally, without needing to be quiet, if you feel pressure to be quiet, just be. And in my opinion, prayer just needs to be reframed. And a few podcasts ago, we reframed it as the only way to life. I think last podcast, we reframed prayer as the only way to be filled.
And now we're talking about prayer as being the most relaxing, least amount of pressure, least amount of effort, experiencing all of life. Be still, Psalm 46 verse to be still and know that I am God. And maybe this will help. It helps me.
You can't pray badly. You can't mess prayer up. You won't be judged. You don't have to perform.
You don't have to get it perfect. You don't have to make it work. Now, let's think for a minute because all of those things that I just mentioned are things that we pretty much bring to every area of our lives and every relationship of our lives and every context and every party and every, you know, whatever we're doing. And it's exhausting and prayer.
What if prayers the total break from exhaustion of what life is because of pressures and expectation and it's this invitation to be still and to cease from effort and to be quiet and maybe even fall asleep, but cease from effort. And of course, and I need to land this plane. Of course, I think that learning this in prayer to cease from effort is going to be something that we're going to bring into many areas of our lives. We're going to learn it with Jesus and learn it in prayer, but learning how to be still is something we're going to eventually be able to bring to work and bring to dates and bring to relationship and live a life of much less pressure and expectation and experience the wonder and the beauty and the transcendency of the moment that we're in as we're just still and knowing that God is God.
So let's spend five minutes in prayer this morning reading Psalm 46, not trying, you know, being still, you know, ceasing from effort in that relaxing place of prayer. Let's just stop. Let's cease. Let's pause.
Let's be calm. Let's enjoy and let's celebrate in stillness the relaxing presence of Jesus in the talk soon. Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by today.
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