Fighting for Solitude

00:00:00.000 | We're joined again by pastor and author Tim Keller.

00:00:07.500 | He has a wonderful book coming out soon titled Prayer, Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with

00:00:12.220 | God and it may just be one of the best Christian books of 2014.

00:00:16.000 | That's not hyperbole.

00:00:17.420 | He joins us from New York City to talk about prayer and I asked him two questions yesterday.

00:00:21.760 | Here we go with two more.

00:00:22.960 | Question number three, Dr. Keller.

00:00:25.060 | Throughout your new book on prayer, you warn readers about moving from Bible study to prayer.

00:00:29.880 | Skipping over one crucial step in the middle, which is meditation.

00:00:34.400 | Why are we quick to skip right over this step of meditation?

00:00:38.480 | Well, it's possible that we're quick to miss this step because we live in a culture that

00:00:49.320 | doesn't encourage solitude and reflection.

00:00:54.600 | It's also possible that evangelicalism is a little bit too shaped by rational, rational,

00:01:00.080 | I should say rationalism maybe, rationality, rationalism.

00:01:04.440 | So our approach to the Bible sometimes is get the meaning through the grammatical historical

00:01:11.120 | exegesis and once you got the meaning, then there it is and that's all you need and you

00:01:15.400 | don't have to work it into your heart.

00:01:18.540 | So maybe we're too rationalistic, maybe we don't have the solitude.

00:01:22.100 | But if you read Martin Luther, especially his, well any of Martin Luther, Martin Luther

00:01:26.640 | believed that you need to take the truth that you have learned through good exegesis.

00:01:35.360 | I'm a little concerned about some approaches to reading the Bible that says don't read

00:01:42.000 | the Bible and listen to God speaking to you, don't think about theology, just let God speak

00:01:47.800 | to you.

00:01:48.800 | I'm a little concerned about that because the way God speaks to you in the Bible is

00:01:52.880 | after you do good exegesis and you figure out what the text is saying.

00:01:56.520 | But once you understand that, Luther said you need to learn how to warm your heart with

00:02:00.520 | it, get it into your heart.

00:02:02.880 | And it really diminishes our prayer life because our hearts are cold and we get into prayer.

00:02:07.980 | And I think without meditation, you tend to go right into petition and supplication and

00:02:12.520 | you do very little adoration or confession.

00:02:15.200 | Because when your heart is warm, then you start to praise God and then you confess.

00:02:18.880 | When your heart is cold, which it is if you just study the Bible and then jump to prayer,

00:02:23.120 | is you're much more likely to spend your time on your prayer list and not really engage

00:02:26.520 | your heart that much.

00:02:27.520 | >> So it seems a key to the fruitful prayer life is the conviction that the Bible was

00:02:31.720 | really and truly written for me personally.

00:02:34.920 | >> Well, yes, of course it is.

00:02:37.040 | I mean, you know, Deuteronomy 29, 29, "The secret things belong to God, but the things

00:02:41.260 | that are revealed are revealed that you may do them."

00:02:43.340 | And so, of course, the Bible is the part of God's will and mind that he wants us to know.

00:02:52.640 | But the way you determine what he's saying in the Word of God is through sound theological

00:02:56.440 | exegesis.

00:02:58.200 | But then once you discern the meaning, you have to work it into your heart to make sure

00:03:02.160 | it does become a personal word to you and not just a concept you hold with a mind.

00:03:07.520 | >> Excellent.

00:03:08.520 | All right, on to question number four.

00:03:10.680 | Last December on Twitter, you were asked, "Why do you think young Christian adults struggle

00:03:14.080 | most deeply with God as a personal reality in their lives?"

00:03:18.280 | And you replied, "Noise and distraction.

00:03:21.160 | It's easier to tweet than to pray."

00:03:24.000 | That's sadly true.

00:03:25.000 | I mean, we are fickle people, and for all the many benefits of digital technology, we

00:03:28.320 | are tempted to get distracted from prayer by tweets and our Facebook feeds and texts

00:03:33.080 | and emails on our phone.

00:03:34.080 | I mean, in a sense, we want to be distracted.

00:03:38.200 | So what counsel would you give to a Christian who finds himself or herself lured to distractions

00:03:43.960 | when they are trying to pray?

00:03:46.160 | >> Well, I may have just answered the question.

00:03:48.760 | I mean, primarily, there is no way around just simply the discipline of saying, "This

00:03:55.240 | is something I've got to spend time doing."

00:03:58.040 | In my book on prayer, I tell a story about how my wife used an illustration on me, and

00:04:04.000 | she basically said, "If a doctor said you have a fatal condition unless you take this

00:04:09.240 | medicine and every night from 11 to 11, 15, you have to swallow these pills and do this

00:04:14.920 | thing, otherwise you'll be dead by morning," she said, "you'd never miss.

00:04:17.920 | You would never say, 'I was too tired.'

00:04:19.960 | You'd never say, 'I didn't get to it,' or 'I was watching a movie and I didn't leave

00:04:23.120 | time.'

00:04:24.120 | You never would do that.

00:04:25.560 | If anything that you know you've got to do, you do."

00:04:28.560 | And so when people say, "Well, I don't know.

00:04:30.400 | How am I going to get to prayer?

00:04:31.400 | How am I going to deal with the distraction?"

00:04:32.400 | I say, "I'm sorry, you don't believe you need prayer, and that's a theological spiritual

00:04:36.160 | problem, and there's nothing I can do except tell you you need to get your heart straight

00:04:41.080 | and your mind straight on that."

00:04:42.640 | However, having said that, once you've determined you've got to do it, inside your prayer time,

00:04:48.840 | it's hard sometimes to keep from being distracted.

00:04:51.440 | That's where meditation helps.

00:04:52.880 | See, Martin Luther said that if you warm your heart through meditation on the Scripture

00:04:58.520 | so that your heart starts to really warm up, and you go into prayer because you want to

00:05:03.040 | pray, because you want to praise Him for what you see, and you want to confess your sins,

00:05:07.560 | meditation on a passage of the Scripture actually, in my case, it helps me from, keeps me from

00:05:12.800 | being distracted.

00:05:13.800 | Because it means you've got to figure this out.

00:05:15.800 | You've got to say, "Okay, what does it mean to me?

00:05:17.360 | What is it?

00:05:18.360 | How do I praise God for this?

00:05:19.880 | How do I confess for this?

00:05:21.160 | How do I petition for this?"

00:05:23.760 | Meditation warms the heart and absorbs the mind so I'm not as distracted.

00:05:29.040 | So I guess the answer is twofold.

00:05:30.040 | One is you've got to decide it's something you've got to do, and there's nothing I can

00:05:32.920 | do to help you with that.

00:05:33.960 | But once you're inside, meditation keeps you from having your mind wandering during your

00:05:38.280 | prayer time.

00:05:39.280 | >> Good.

00:05:40.280 | Very pointed and convicting, but very good.

00:05:42.480 | Thank you, Dr. Keller.

00:05:43.480 | And tomorrow, I'll ask you questions number five and six, including something that we've

00:05:47.200 | touched on previously, but I want to expand on, because lament is part of the healthy

00:05:51.320 | Christian life, as you argue in the book.

00:05:53.240 | So that means prayer includes complaining.

00:05:56.240 | So how does a good Calvinist complain to God?

00:05:59.440 | That's tomorrow.

00:06:00.440 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:06:01.440 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

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00:06:04.300 | Ask Pastor John podcast.com/AskPastorJohn.

Fighting for Solitude

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