PRAYER UNTETHERED

Yesterday I wrote about Scripture-less prayer having real world consequences. In the best case scenario, we ask for the wrong thing and the worst consequence is wasted time. Ours and God's.

It is when we "hear God's direction" through our untethered prayers that the consequences can become destructive - to ourselves and others.

What is the best way to be certain the voice we hear is really God's? I would say we can have confidence when the instructions, tone, and priorities align with God's voice and character as expressed through his word. 

I feel strongly about this for good reason. I (and my wife) have been on the receiving end of serious repercussions of untethered prayer.

But I will share here only my own experience (though my wife had it worse) and I will leave all names out. 

The lack of proper discernment in prayer, in a nutshell, was one of my main beefs with the mission organization which sought to discipline me on the basis of false accusations from a co-worker. 

The process was quite drawn out. And painful.

Throughout, the leadership of the organization said things like "We prayed about this and we believe God is saying ... ". And "We prayed long and hard about our response and we have decided to ... " 

The implication was that if they had "spent time in prayer", the matter was settled. Their discernment was not to be questioned. Even if their conclusions ran counter to Scripture. (Not to mention, common sense.) 

Every time I tried to direct attention back to Scripture, my complaints went unaddressed.

I said things like "The Bible says 'you shall not bear false witness'. How many of the accusations must be proved to be lies before you throw out my accuser's entire testimony?" 

- Silence.

"The Bible says if we feel a brother has sinned against us, we should go to him personally. Why is the organization encouraging and upholding anonymous accusations?" 

- Crickets.

"You say you are seeking reconciliation and yet the anonymity makes reconciliation literally impossible. (Punishment, on the other hand, is very doable.)" 

- Nothing.

And finally "Jesus says, 'Let your yes be yes and your no be no'. Do you think it is right for you as a Christian organization to force my silence about all of this nonsense by requiring me to sign a legally-binding document written by your lawyer? Under threat of termination for not signing?" 

- - - Well, we didn't actually wait for a response on that last one. Melissa and I resigned when presented with that legal document. (Writing the things contained in this blog post - even speaking them - would have gotten me fired ten times over!) 

Take it from me, prayer untethered from Scripture is destructive. 

Discernment in prayer requires deep familiarity with Scripture.