Prayer and Giving: Part 2 - When? Steady and Spontaneous
What would the world look like without prayer? I envision faithful prayers as a force of gravity, holding the earth together. Similarly, where would we be without generosity? Faithful donors keep many churches and charities afloat.
In the previous post, we looked at the how of prayer and giving - together and apart. Christians pray and give both together and individually. Same with giving. This post looks at the when of prayer and giving. Let’s start with steady prayer and giving, and then move to spontaneous prayer and giving.
Steady prayers
Likely you’ve heard “Give us this day our daily bread” before! It’s part of the Lord’s prayer, the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. The “this day” and “daily” are big hints that prayer is meant to be an every day practice. If you’re an unsteady pray-er, babysteps! I often cite Anne Lamott’s Help, Thanks, Wow as a great starting point. And let’s be honest, every day is a new start.
Grace before meals, praying first thing in the morning and/or at last thing at night — there are many rhythms of prayer. The daily office in monastic communities embodies a steady rhythm of prayer that’s as life-giving as breathing.
Congregational life embodies prayer. In liturgical churches, that’s literally true—there is a sitting, standing, kneeling pattern of movement to prayer. I’m envious!
Regardless of how a congregation prays, prayer forms the basis of Christian worship. We take it for granted, but prayer presumes (or aspires to presume) that:
there is a God
God cares enough to listen
we can listen to God.
This isn’t an exhaustive list on the basis of prayer, but already it’s quite a radical collection of beliefs! And prayer is repeated over and over. There are midweek praying gatherings, prayer requests circulated through congregations, small gatherings in the church parking lot and around kitchen tables. Steady prayer can’t help but shape our faith, like a river creating smooth stones.
Steady givers
Steady givers and steady pray-ers are frequently the same people. I cringe when I hear church people say things like, “young families can’t afford to give.” Young families might not be able to give at the same level as someone older. Housing is expensive. Education costs are high. God asks us to give as we are able, according to what we have and not according to what we don’t have (2 Cor 8:2).
Everyone can afford to be generous in some way (2 Cor 9:11). We don’t tell young families, “you can learn to pray when you’re older and you have more time.” Begin now, pointed in the direction you want to go.
Start now, and pray as you’re able.
Start now, and give as you’re able.
Darren Pries-Klassen gives good advice on generosity. He says to:
find a cause you care about
chose an amount you can afford
give regularly
see what happens!
There is tremendous joy in generosity. We get to be part of what God is doing in the world! While “give regularly” sounds boring, a “rinse and repeat” approach to giving is what builds a habit. I am huge fan of pre-authorized giving and in my book, Pastor Kim preaches a sermon on pre-authorized giving based on 1 Corinthians 16. (You can find my book on my website or on Amazon.)
Spontaneous prayers
Recently, the sky was a lovely colour as the sun was setting behind the trees. I said, “Go you, sky! You’re looking beautiful!” as I closed the curtains. That is a spontaneous prayer of “wow!” “I thank you God for the beautiful sunset which you have laid out before me…” would be more formal. I’m trusting that God knows my heart.
Help and thanks are other great spontaneous prayers, as we mentioned earlier. Life provides lots of opportunity for prayer! It needn’t be formal, grammatically correct or even comprehensible. Sometimes our prayers don’t have words.
Sometimes our spontaneous prayers are lament. Or help! That leads to our next topic.
Spontaneous givers
What if your spontaneous generosity is the answer to someone else’s prayer for help? It makes me smile to imagine that. We can’t always see the results of our prayers or our generosity. I counsel people to let their money follow their prayers, and our generosity might connect with someone else’s prayers. That is how communities of faith operate.
I’ve had the honour of listening to many faithful donors share how they learned to give. Prayer informs their lives. I’m grateful for the cloud of witnesses who demonstrate how to live prayerfully and generously.
The next post will be about generous praying and then we’ll finish this series with a look at prayerful generosity. Thanks for reading!