An atheist was taking a walk through the woods.
"What majestic trees!  What powerful rivers!  What beautiful animals!" he said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look. He saw a 7 foot grizzly charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again, and the bear was even closer.

His heart was pumping frantically and he tried to run even faster.

He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.  At that instant the Atheist cried out: "Oh my God"

Time stopped.  The bear froze.  The forest was silent.

As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky "You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don't exist, and even said that creation is a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament?  Am I to count you as a believer?"

The atheist looked directly into the light, "It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask You to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps could you make the bear a Christian?"

"Very well," said the voice.  The light went out.  And the sounds of the forest resumed.  And then the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together and bowed his head and spoke: "Lord, Bless this food which I am about to receive and for which I am truly thankful".

How do you pray?

Is prayer a recitation of words learned by rote?  Is prayer an expression of love that wells up from the heart?  Is prayer a desperate cry for help?  When it comes to your prayer life are you like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland?  “No time to sit and talk…” Do you pray intentionally or do you intend to pray but seldom do?

When you pray do you start out telling God what you want, or do you start out praising God for who God is?

One of the promises Mike and Janet and you and I made this morning was to teach Amanda and to pray. How do you plan to carry out that promise? There are children’s books of prayers for children of all ages. Those books are a great place to begin. The best way to teach children to pray is to model prayer for them. If I had to do it over again with Adam and Gregory I would have allowed them more opportunities to see me in prayer and even pray with me.

Our scripture lesson this morning provides us with a prayer model.

Daniel started his prayer acknowledging who God is.

He admitted his sinfulness and then He continued acknowledging who God is saying

You might wonder why Daniel begged for mercy and not God’s help? The reason, Daniel knew his people deserved God’s wrath and punishment. He also knew that God sends help because of His great mercy. When we pray for help we have a tendency to tell God what to do. When we pray for mercy we don’t give God any instruction we simply open ourselves to God will.

Daniel’s prayer for the nation of Israel is a prayer that we need to pray for the world today, which is World Wide Communion Sunday. We need to acknowledge God’s awesome greatness and our sinfulness. It is easy to blame others and excuse our own actions. We look for others to blame for our worlds situation, for the unrest, for world hunger. Like Daniel we need to first look inside and confess our own sins.

“All this disaster has come upon us,
yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God
by turning from our sins
and giving attention to Your truth.”

It is not so much what Daniel said as to the attitude with which Daniel entered prayer.

“As he prayed, he fasted, confessed his sins
and pleaded that God would reveal His will.”

He prayed with complete surrender to God with complete openness to what God was saying to him.

What is your attitude concerning prayer. The way you pray, does it reveal your willingness to completely surrender to God? Does it reveal your willingness to make a sacrifice for God?

Self-sacrifice is central to God’s nature. It was because of His sacrifice on the cross that God pardons my sins and yours. Self-sacrifice is central to prayer and discipleship.

We pray

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Do we mean it? What are you willing to sacrifice in the way of time, talent, treasure, and comfort to establish God’s will in heaven and on earth.