Praying with Scripture

Dr. Mark Laaser

Prayers about listening to God. That prayer sometimes about being silent and listening to God talking to us. So prayer is not just about talking to God. It is about quieting ourselves enough to allow God to talk back to us. And by talking, I'm not, you know, talking about writing on the wall or audible voice. But I do think it's oftentimes in our intuitive self, if we are open to that, thoughts will come to us.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I was talking to a guy yesterday, said he was deep in kind of meditative prayer, and a scripture verse just kind of came to him. Well, I think that's God talking to him.

Randy Evert

Welcome to the Faithful and True podcast. I'm Randy Everett, your co-host. Happy to be with you here today to present another legacy episode featuring doctor Mark Lazar, our founder of Faithful and True. Today's podcast is going to feature Mark and myself having a discussion about praying with Scripture. And this goes back a number of years, of course, and we hope that you will enjoy this conversation that we had here.

Randy Evert

Now is doctor Mark Lazar and the Faithful and True podcast, praying with Scripture.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Randy we're back. We are.

Randy Evert

Back, Mark, after a very brief hiatus. Your your international travels more.

Dr. Mark Laaser

More.

Randy Evert

Correctly your national travels. I had you out of the office for a while, teaching out at Fuller Seminary in Southern California. But actually it pays a benefit to us because not only did you inspire the minds of those that attended your teaching, then you and Deb also did a wonderful Arc workshop training event that was also quite successful.

Randy Evert

And you came back to us today with a story that I think is just one of those. You had to have been there to believe it moments.

Dr. Mark Laaser

That is correct. And it is a story that will introduce us to our topic today, which is about prayer.

Randy Evert

Okay.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And I want to talk about prayer. I want to talk about a form of prayer called lexia Divina. And that will allow you and I to practice our Latin. Awesome.

Randy Evert

That sounds just great. Well, why don't we jump right into that in having the listeners understand that there you were for a week's time out in Southern California and first teaching at Fuller Seminary, and that's in the Pasadena area.

Dr. Mark Laaser

That is in Pasadena. So this requires some setup, I guess. And I know we have a lot of listeners in Southern California. Having just been out there, there was a number of people that talk to us about listening to the show, so they will completely understand the normal, impossible nature of the freeway system there in Southern California. I think most of us in the rest of the country have some awareness of that.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Maybe we travel out there occasionally. We know how hard it is to get from point A to B. There are even special radio stations that every ten minutes, give traffic alerts about impassable segments of the freeway system. So yes, I, on Wednesday night of that particular week, needed to get from Pasadena, California, which is about ten miles north of downtown Los Angeles, to the San Diego airport.

Dr. Mark Laaser

The intent was to pick up Debbie, who was flying into San Diego for our teaching the next day at the conference. So I knew at some point that it was 5050 or less, that I'd make it on time to pick her up. We had an alternate plan, you know, that she would just take a cab to the hotel and I'd meet her there.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Whatever time I got to San Diego. The trip is a distance of about 129 miles. And I left Pasadena at 430, and I needed to pick up Debbie at eight. So you'd normally think around here that if you had 3.5 hours, you could travel 129 miles easily enough. Well, so I left the seminary, got on one of the freeways.

Dr. Mark Laaser

The first ten miles of this trip took me an hour and a half.

Randy Evert

Ten miles in an hour and a half.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Yeah. So that's stop and go traffic. And at this point, I'm on one of the freeways heading south, the 605 freeway. We're basically in a section there, which is South Central Los Angeles, which is not a great area in terms of crime and violence and those kinds of things. So at this point, you know, being a 64 year old diabetic, after an hour and a half on the freeway, I'm really needing to go to the bathroom.

Dr. Mark Laaser

The freeways out there are not marked with, you know, gas stations and convenience stores and restaurants. So I just took a shot, got off the 605 freeway, one of the exits there in South Central Los Angeles, hoping that there would be a convenience store, a gas station. Well, there was none of that. It was pretty barren there at that particular exit.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And but as I looked down the street from where I got off, there was a church. And so I said to myself, well, church, I'm a Christian.

Randy Evert

Lord, be with me as I enter your house.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Yeah. That's right. Hoping that, you know, in South Central LA, it was a church that was open. You know, this was, you know, Wednesday, early evening. So sure enough, I get there and I walk in and there are two very nice looking men, a couple of African American gentlemen, one Hispanic gentleman. And they were deep in conversation. And I just walked up to them and I said, excuse me, I'll just be honest with you.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I've been stuck on the freeways. I'm trying to get to San Diego, and I am desperately in need of a bathroom. So I just assumed that maybe they, you know, they have no problem with me going and using their bathroom.

Randy Evert

Honesty is the best policy.

Dr. Mark Laaser

That's right. That's what we preach here at Faithful and True. And I occasionally practice what I preach. So they had more questions, you know, and they said, why are you going to San Diego? And I said, well, I'm speaking at a conference down there. And they said, what are you speaking about? And I said, I'm speaking about addictions.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And they said, what kind of conference is this? And I said, it's a Christian counseling conference. And then they said, are you a pastor or something? And I said, yes, I am an ordained pastor. And so they said, well, pastor, you know, by all means use our bathroom. And so I did. I went in and used the bathroom.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And as I'm coming out now, there are 20 men gathered outside the bathroom.

Randy Evert

It's loaves and fishes.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Yes. And I'm assuming maybe they're having some Wednesday night activities, like a lot of churches do. But no, some guy who identified himself as one of the lead pastors came up and said, pastor, we'd like to pray for you. And I said, because I have anxiety about time schedules. And I said, that would be wonderful, and I need to get back on this crazy freeway.

Dr. Mark Laaser

So, you know, I'm trying to get down to San Diego in time to pick up my wife. And he said, that's what we want to pray for you about. So if you don't mind, come to the front of the church and we will pray for you. So with some trepidation, I, you know, went to the front of this church and now they said, stand in the middle, pastor.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Now I'm surrounded by 20 nice looking men, and yet I'm in a strange church, a same place, I should say, that part of the name of this church was the Apostolic Church. So what the word apostolic meant exactly. I wasn't theologically sure, but I had some assumption it had to do with being filled with the Holy Spirit. So anyway.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Now I'm standing in the middle of a circle of 20 men who I do not know, and the lead pastor says, I'm going to start. And he started. All right. I mean, he was yelling, shouting, beseeching Jesus and asking for things at the at the top of his lungs. I mean, he was just yelling, and he had no sooner started than all 20 guys started at the top of their lungs.

Dr. Mark Laaser

They were they were yelling, shouting, screaming. It was hard to discern what they were saying. Jesus name came up very often and San Diego came up. I did hear that wife came up. I heard that, and they were obviously praying for me to get to San Diego in time to pick up my wife. And sure enough, after two minutes of this, the lead pastor said, Hallelujah!

Dr. Mark Laaser

Thank you Jesus. And they all stopped and I didn't know what to say. So I said Hallelujah back. And the pastor gave me a big hug and said, we've just prayed for your pastor. We hope you have a safe trip to San Diego, so I left. Now I kind of I'm in a daze here, I have to confess.

Dr. Mark Laaser

So I get back on the freeway. I've just gotten off at the same point where the traffic in six lanes, the 605 at this point is six lanes of traffic stop and go in all six lanes. And that's where I got off. So I get back on and I see at most in these six lanes, five cars, five cars.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And so I said, where, where did all the traffic go?

Randy Evert

And and where is Rod Serling?

Dr. Mark Laaser

Yeah, exactly. And so now I speed up to the speed limit, which is 65. And of course, you know, I kind of fudge that a little bit. I'm now going 70. I have never gone 70 miles an hour on a California freeway in my life. And I'm just waiting for.

Randy Evert

The congestion.

Dr. Mark Laaser

The congestion to reappear. I will tell you that it never reappeared. I went by Disneyland. I went by many points of attraction there in Southern California. I went on freeways that I've historically been on and taken hours to get, you know, various places. And I pulled into the San Diego airport exactly at 8:00. So I traveled 119 miles and 100 and an hour and 45 minutes with virtually no traffic, virtually none.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I was telling this story to some of my friends from Southern California. They said, Mark, we've lived here 25 years and we've never heard of a story like that. We've never gone 70 miles an hour in the California freeways. This is absolutely a miracle. I'm still to this day wondering where all of that six lanes of traffic went.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I mean, did God, just like he parted the Red sea, you know, just.

Randy Evert

I think that was the analogy I made when you first told me this story, because it almost sounds unbelievable.

Dr. Mark Laaser

It really, you know, I was so amazed by it that I just had to keep talking about it and talking about it to some of my friends from California and I to a person. None of them could believe that, that this story actually happened.

Randy Evert

Well, if any of us that have withstood the the stress and the logistics of making that drive and I've done it myself several times, you you just don't run into that scenario because there is traffic on all sides of you. It's hard enough to actually change lanes to exit where you want to exit.

Dr. Mark Laaser

That's right. Now, there's other strange things on the California freeways that happen, motorcyclists that are going between the lanes and all this kind of stuff. So anyway, it was a remarkable experience. And just to kind of conclude the story, which is, of course, an introduction, it impressed upon me the power of prayer. And not just any prayer, but enthusiastic prayer.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And, you know, I've reflected a lot on it in the days following. And, you know, the tradition that I was raised in, I think the tradition that a lot of us were raised in is silent prayer. Quiet prayer.

Randy Evert

Heads are down, Isaac.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Are closed. Your whispering, your prayers. You're certainly not even saying them out loud. And these guys were like having a dance party there. I mean, they were enthusiastic and they were praising and shouting and and in claiming and asking and they were they were doing it boldly. So we'll get back to this after our break, I think. But there are several.

Dr. Mark Laaser

One of the things I wanted to emphasize today without getting to deep into a Bible study, I mean, I did look up on several of the Bible resource websites, you know, some history of prayer, both in, you know, the Old and New Testament and also in the early church and the current church. And I would just like to summarize that.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I think there are a number of things that are accomplished in prayer or that we seek to do in prayer. And I think one of the most common things that we do in prayer is what's generally referred to as petition. We ask God for things, and I would just like to make a point about that, that if that's the only thing we're doing in prayer, I think we're missing the boat about prayer.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Now, don't get me wrong, I just told a story about a petition. I mean, these guys were petitioning very enthusiastically in Jesus, of course, said, you know, if you ask and you ask in confidence, God will answer those prayers. So, you know, it's okay to ask God for what we need. That's prayers of petition.

Randy Evert

Well, it's not often that you see such an immediate answer to those prayers as you experienced.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Well, and that leads us to one of the second things about prayer, and that is that I think oftentimes prayer is wrestling because prayer is not always answered in the way that we ask for it to be answered. I mean, I've thought about this. I mean, why would God miraculously intervene on a freeway system? I mean, it wasn't a life or death situation there.

Dr. Mark Laaser

It wasn't something that I even absolutely needed to be at the airport at 8:00, we had an alternate strategy. So why would God intervene on that when, you know, so often we pray in terms of life threatening illnesses or other kind of situations. Dire situation, dire situations. Well, it does mean that there are going to be times when when prayer is a matter of talking to God, wrestling with that God, complaining to God.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I mean, if you think about the book of Psalms, for example, which is really a series of prayers, the psalmist is frequently complaining. So that's one of the points I wanted to emphasize that that prayer can sometimes be about anger, disappointment, complaint, and God can listen to that. God is big enough to entertain all the range of emotions that we feel.

Randy Evert

But don't you also feel that it's often important to to remember that I'm frequently trying to remind myself of dedicating prayer towards thanking God for for all the good things that he does provide for me. And like you said, not only are our previous prayers answered at an unpredictable time, but just stepping back. And when you see something go so well for yourself.

Randy Evert

As a for instance, our youngest son was in China on an internship, and there's so many unknowns when they're over there on the other side of the world. And we live in a dangerous world now, and we're seeing all of these tragedies with airliners going down. And and you're so full of prayer that you know, your child comes back safe.

Randy Evert

So it's that struck me as a real appropriate time when he arrived home safely to thank God for that.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Well, you're quite emotional about it, because it's a hard thing to see your youngest son go so far away and come back safely. By the way, I think that's a wonderful idea. I heard a speaker once say that he journals his prayers. He he prays, but then he he journals what the prayer was. And he said, one of the great things that I do is take out my journals from ten years ago, and that oftentimes gives me the opportunity to see over the last ten years how in fact God has answered those prayers.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And sometimes it may take out ten years or a year or whatever to answer it, but that he always does, not always in the way that we want him to. But there's always an answer to our prayers.

Randy Evert

It'd be interesting to see that journal, to see how long some of those petitions took to be answered. That's right. You know, or if there were still some unresolved prayers out there that God had had decided the timing was not quite ready.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Well, you know, I, I think we we all can think of examples if we give God enough time and we're willing to look back. But I think you've identified another thing that prayers about and that is about thanksgiving or praise, affirmation for God, that kind of thing. So, you know, there's several functions of prayer so far. Another one, I think, is that we are to pray through Christ.

Dr. Mark Laaser

How often do we say that in Jesus name we pray. And that's really part of the biblical instruction that we are to pray through Christ, meaning that it's because of what Christ did for us, that we have the ability to pray in some of the ways that we've listed. Also, we know that Jesus taught us one of the simplest prayers to pray the Lord's Prayer.

Dr. Mark Laaser

One final thought about the complaints part in that is that frequently, like in the Psalms or the Book of Lamentations, prayers are about wrestling with God and about complaints, and they end up. After we've gotten all this off our chest, we get to that part of praising God and understanding you know who God really is. The final thing I wanted to emphasize today that prayer is often about it.

Dr. Mark Laaser

I think this is the one that we least understand, and that is that prayer is about listening to God. That prayer is sometimes about being silent and listening to God talking to us. So prayer is not just about talking to God. It is about quieting ourselves enough to allow God to talk back to us. And by talking, I'm not, you know, talking about writing on the wall or audible voice.

Dr. Mark Laaser

But I do think it's oftentimes in our intuitive self, if we are open to that, thoughts will come to us. I was talking to a guy yesterday, said he was deep in kind of meditative prayer, and a scripture verse just kind of came to him. Well, I think that's God talking to him. And one of the the forms of kind of prayer and meditation that we've really been emphasizing here at Faithful and True over the last several years, and I think we've talked about it a little bit before on the show.

Dr. Mark Laaser

It's called Lexia Divina. That's how the Latin is pronounced. It's spelled leik tio divina, and it means in Latin, divine reading. It has four parts to it. And I thought today, before we close our show, I just list what those four parts are.

Randy Evert

That's a great that's a great concept that I'd love to have you explain before we move on to that. I was struck by your last point, because so many of us always think of prayer as being one way communication. That's right. You know, you just feel that that that it's your moment alone with God. But how enlightening when you open your mind to the possibility of listening to to God talking back to you.

Randy Evert

I think that that could be a very powerful exercise. And I think that, Mark, I think a lot of people are out there and some struggle with how should I pray?

Dr. Mark Laaser

Yeah, that's right. And there are obviously lots of formulaic prayers. I mean, there are written prayers. There's, you know, in various traditions, you know, rosaries and, you know, this and that. I've often found myself that the best prayers are the simplest prayers, you know, the shortest prayers. I mean, don't we understand that God probably gets it? I mean.

Randy Evert

You really don't have to explain yourself, right?

Dr. Mark Laaser

Right. I mean, frequently, we don't always feel heard by others. And so we tend to give lots of examples, lots of explanation, lots of rationalization. One of the rationalizing words that I think we use a lot in our Christian prayers is the word just, you know, God, I just pray. I'm not asking too much, Lord. You know, I think our prayers are simple and we don't need to say just I mean, God told us to pray for what we need and pray for what we want.

Dr. Mark Laaser

So anyway, that was just a little aside.

Randy Evert

Yeah, I didn't mean to and I didn't mean to throw you off track. So back to the lexicon Divina.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Alexios.

Randy Evert

Alexios it.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Down in Mexico it's Lexicon Divina.

Randy Evert

I was having my my Spanish background suddenly appeared.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Well, anyway, there are four parts to the Lexicon Divina, and the first part is really the kind of prepare for this before you start the four parts. And that's to make sure you are in a place where it's relatively quiet. You're not going to be distracted. We sometimes refer to it around here as a place of your own.

Dr. Mark Laaser

It could be a chair and a lamp and a table where you have your Bible or whatever, and it could be a time of the day when you're less likely to be interrupted. One of the things the Alexios suggests is that you quiet yourself through your breathing, and there's everything about breathing that has to do with spirit. So, you know, just do some deep breaths so that you're quieting yourself.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And then the four parts of the lecture started, by the way, this can take 10 to 15 minutes. This is not necessarily some lengthy thing we're talking about here. The first part of Leko is the word lexicon. It means right. So the encouragement with this form of meditation and prayer is to pick one Scripture verse, just one verse, not take a whole passage, but just pick a verse and read that verse and maybe read it out loud.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Strangely enough, even though you're by yourself. There's something I think about speaking it out into the world that I think is very powerful. So you read the verse several times and you read it out loud. Then you move on to part two, which is called meditating or this is not that hard. Latin is sometimes not very hard to figure out, is it?

Dr. Mark Laaser

Because so many of our words are based on Latin. So meditation is meditation. And then I think meditation means here thinking about the verse and then trying to understand in your own sense of understanding or reasoning or biblical understandings, you know what? In fact, the verse is about what is the context of the verse? What's the story that the verse is in?

Dr. Mark Laaser

You know what what is diverse about? But that's the meditation part of it. Then we move on to the prayer part, which is called aura or ratio. And the prayer is just asking God to dialog with us, to speak to us like we were just talking about a couple of minutes ago. God, you know, the way I do it is I would say, God, what?

Dr. Mark Laaser

What do you want me to understand in this verse about my life, my calling, my ministry, my family? You know what? What do you want me to understand?

Randy Evert

This verse to.

Dr. Mark Laaser

My life? Yes. Apply to speak to me. It's basically the prayer is asking God to talk back to us. So, you know, it's a dialog anticipating a response. But that's the prayer part of the lexicon Divina. And then the last part of the fourth part is called plot or contemplate. So now this is where you just allow yourself to be silent and be aware of what thoughts come into your brain.

Dr. Mark Laaser

So in other words, like this guy yesterday who was in fact practicing this, he said, that's when a scripture verse just kind of came to me. Now, I'm sure, by the way, psychologists and others could explain this in so many different ways, but I like to think of it as intuition. God uses our brains, uses our minds, uses our rational thought, and I think stuff will show up even if it's Scripture versus that we memorized years ago.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Or we just went to church and heard something about something. God will use whatever the material is in our brain to speak to us rather directly. He will bring stuff up in our brain. And if we're being quiet and just asking God to speak to us this way, my belief is that God will. He'll put thoughts in your mind.

Randy Evert

And let yourself be receptive to those messages.

Dr. Mark Laaser

That's right. And maybe sometimes journal, write them down. What are they? Come back to them later. I think it's all a very powerful process. We are seeing testimonies to the fact with a lot of our men that if they could commit to this for even 15 minutes a day, it's doing a real number on their thought life for the rest of.

Randy Evert

The day, right? Kind of leading the way to a positive thought pattern as they're, you know, fulfilling their day.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Well, I, you know, if I, if I opened myself in the morning to God speaking to me throughout the day, then there will be moments when things come to me and I just have to trust at some point that it is in fact, God talking to me.

Randy Evert

Why don't we wrap up today's show with you, leading us in a brief prayer?

Dr. Mark Laaser

Heavenly father, we thank you so much for all the miraculous things you've done for us, including in my case, on the California freeways. But Lord, there are so many important things in life that we need to beseech you about. Petition you for thank you for praise you for. And most of all, we praise you and pray through the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Dr. Mark Laaser

Lord, I just pray a prayer that all the people listening in some way, you would put a thought in their mind this week to encourage them about prayer, that you are a God who is willing to listen, and you are a God who is willing to talk back to us. We pray for that. We hope for that. We expect that.

Dr. Mark Laaser

And again, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Randy Evert

Thank you for joining us today on the Faithful and True podcast. We hope that you've enjoyed this presentation of a conversation that I had with doctor Mark Lazar, in which we discussed praying with the use of Scripture. Mark was so knowledgeable about the Bible and about Scripture that we always had great conversations that involved that. We hope that you will also get a chance to visit our website, Faithful and True, where you'll find many resources available to you, including the online information and registration for the three day intensive workshops here at Faithful and True.