Embracing Surrender: The Key to Effective Prayer

1. "Prayer can feel clunky. Prayer can feel awkward. Prayer can feel like, is this thing even working? And so it's been a confusing thing for us, but what's even worse when we don't really understand prayer, how to pray when we don't understand the wind, the what, the where, the how, the purpose of prayer at best, it leads to that confusion. It leads to that clunkiness. It leads to a frustration in life. And at worst though, it can actually lead to people giving up on faith." [38:16] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "To learn how to swim, we have to be willing to trust. To learn how to swim, we have to be willing to trust, to surrender. We have to learn to surrender to that instructor that what that instructor is telling us is true. We've got to learn to surrender that whoever's teaching us, maybe it's a parent or an older brother or older sister or a good friend or whatever. But if we resist and we don't surrender, surrender to that person trying to teach us how to swim, we will never learn how to swim." [40:02] (28 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "When we learn to swim, and I did, I did learn to swim. I'm not like an Olympic swimmer. Or anything like that. But my brother, one time when we were on a vacation, we were at a holiday in Holodom, which was a big deal when I was a kid. And he taught me how to swim in a swimming pool at this, at this holiday, the end. Eventually, when we learn to let go of the side of the pool and surrender to that trusted person, what actually happens then as we surrender that and trust someone that what they're telling us is true and that the way to do this is actually correct. When you learn how to swim, it opens up a whole new world that otherwise you would never, ever, ever experience." [40:56] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "The purpose of prayer is to surrender our will not to impose it. The purpose of prayer is to surrender our will not to impose our will. And here, here's the thing. It's at that point, let's just be honest. We're amongst friends and let's just be honest. We need to be real about this stuff. It's at that point that somebody would say, okay, God, I'm out. That's not really what I want. I want my will. Let me out of the pool." [48:12] (23 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Surrendering to God, this idea of going to God and saying, God's your will be done. Not my will be done is so unnatural because it's, it feels too open ended to us because we're saying yes to something before we even know what the answer is. And I want God to do what I want him to do. And so I'm afraid of what God may require of me if I actually go to him and say, God, your will be done. What if he wants something too big? What if he asked me to do something I'm not sure about?" [49:11] (26 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "If you were to talk to a guy like Peter, Peter, the rock, one of Jesus' main disciples, it was always Peter, James and John, Peter, James and John. They talk about if you would talk to Peter, who was this fisherman, this fisherman who decided to surrender it all and follow Jesus. If you were to talk to a guy like the apostle Paul, who was a tent making zealot who was a persecutor of Christians and an ultra religious guy who had this dramatic encounter with Jesus. If you talk to him about surrender, if you talk to the other disciples, you know, maybe James and John and all the other boys, if you talk to the Mary's and you talk to the Martha's and you talk to those people who surrendered and gave everything to Jesus, listen, if you were to talk to some of your friends that you're going, you know, they're into this thing a whole lot more than I am. And I can tell they're a whole lot more surrendered and maybe you wouldn't have put it that way before, but now you're realizing that's what it is. If you were to say, if you were to talk to them the thing I know you would hear the thing I know that would come out of their mouths is they would tell you that surrendering, surrendering to God, your will be done." [50:11] (67 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "If you're a Christian and you want deep faith again, I think that's a really, really good thing. But the thing I would argue with you is having deep faith has very little to about what you know, it has everything to do with S U R R E N D E R. It has to do with surrender deep. You want to be deep surrender. You can fill your head full of information until you surrender to God with that information. There's no depth there. There's knowledge there. It's surrendering and praying. Even before we know what it is, it's surrendering and praying, saying, God, thy will be done. I don't even know what the issue is yet, but God, I want what you want. I want your will to be done here." [51:53] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "God, don't make me either poor or rich. You ever prayed that? Don't make me rich, God. I don't think anybody's ever prayed that. Maybe you have, I don't know. God, don't make me either poor or rich, but give me only the bread I need each day. And he says, why? Here's why. If you don't, I might have too much. And then he might say, I don't know you. I might say, who is the Lord? Again, I just feel like this is not a very American thing to pray, because what do we all know? We all want to be rich. Have the big house, have all the cars, have all these things. He's saying, no. He's saying, hey, don't make me too poor. Don't make me too rich. But you ever think about how it could change us spiritually if we truly did pray that?" [01:04:56] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. Because we say forgiveness and think, oh man, this person that's hurt me, this person that's wronged me, this person that's done it, I gotta go and just be best buddies with them and pretend it's all okay and do all that. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is giving up the right to retaliate. Forgiveness is giving up the right to say, you know what, I'm gonna hold, no, I'm not gonna hold on to that anymore. I'm letting that go. Forgiveness is not the same as reconciliation. think you have to understand, biblically speaking, reconciliation of a relationship is great. It really is. I would go as far as to say that reconciliation is the ideal. When it can happen. It can't always happen. Because both people have to be willing. And if you're willing and they're not, you can't make it happen. And you can't have a false reconciliation. But you can. But you still have the ability to choose to forgive." [01:12:08] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "Does God answer prayer? My response, praying like this does. Praying the way Jesus taught us to pray does. 100%. We start by being relational. We address the uncreated creator, perfect and holy. We address him relationally as Father. We recenter ourselves and refocus on who it is we're actually talking to, and then we surrender. Everything that's gonna come, we surrender. kingdom come, your will be Surrender to God to give. Say, God, give me today what I need today. With my health, with the doctor, with my husband, with my wife, with my job, with my challenge, with my success, give me today what I need today. For today, your daily provision. Surrender to God your wrongs." [01:13:55] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)