Sojourn Prayer: The Act Of Entrusting

From a member of the Sojourn prayer team who wishes to remain anonymous:

Several years ago, I was riding on a bus on the way to what at the time was a critical event in my career, with an uncertain outcome ahead.  As we rumbled through the streets toward our destination, I picked up the copy of The Message that I had brought along, and found this paraphrase of Paul’s exhortation to prayer in Phillipians 4:

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.  (Phillipians 4.6-7)

The Holy Spirit’s presence and the impact of the truths behind Peterson’s interpretation were immediate for me in that moment.  This moment has, in turn, helped add helped add a piece of the puzzle to the total mosaic of how I understand, define, and walk out prayer in my life…and when I choose to engage this process of “letting praises and petitions shape worries into prayers” (not often enough I fear!) instead of engaging all the logical reasons I should worry, I do, in fact, find Christ “displacing worry at the center of my life.”

A silly everyday analogy has been useful for me in coming to understand this process. In a sense, this kind of prayer parallels keeping a to-do list or entering appointments on the calendar on my phone.  When I enter an upcoming appointment with all its details and save it to the phone, at that moment, I lose conscious awareness of it and move on with whatever faces me next that day.  I no longer actively think or ponder on the specifics of the date, the time, or wondering whether I’ll remember the appointment because I have entrusted that appointment, that concern, that burden, to the phone, and my mind therefore has no need to return to it or dwell on it.

This transaction, in miniature, illustrates what happens when we bring our concerns and our anxieties and our fears and our requests before a Father that is infinitely more reliable and gracious than my Blackjack…it is an unloading, a discarding, an entrusting that allows us to walk free of the burden because of our complete confidence in the character and faithfulness of Him to whom we have entrusted our every worry, and our every need.

“Casting all your burdens upon Him, for He cares for you…” (I Peter 5.7).  The Greek word for “casting” speaks literally of “placing upon,” or, more graphically, “throwing upon,” not to be picked up and carried around again.  We can throw those requests with such abandon and such freedom and such finality upon Him because of a fundamental assurance not so much because of a confidence in the specific outcome of the prayer, but a confidence in the fundamental character of Him upon whom we’re throwing our prayers…..”He cares for you.”

To paraphrase The Message’s paraphrase, then, the “process” of prayer is the act of entrusting our burdens to Him rather than ourselves.   In doing this we begin to identify with His character as a benevolent, just, and loving God who always knows what’s best for us and always answers prayer.  As we identify more with His character and less with our logical reasons for doubting Him, He begins to fill our prayers more and more with each burden we place upon Him, replacing those burdens with the greatest gift of all, Himself, displacing worry at the center of our life.