The next few Sundays I am going to talk about various ways to view prayer. Today I am going to talk about prayer as focused living. When we live our days focused on God, then all the expressions of our living are in the deepest sense expressions of prayer. 

Living focused on God is what the passage we read from Proverbs describes, and in describing life focused on God the passage is also talking about living as prayer. So, let’s examine this passage to discover what we can about so living our lives centered on God that all we say and do is an expression of prayer. 

First, the poet reminds us and urges us to remember what we already know about God and about what God expects of us. “My child, do not forget my teaching …”^[1] But the poet is aware we need do more. Remembering what we ought to do is not enough. We must do it. And so he adds, “... let your heart keep my commandments…” We are to be committed to what we know. We are to embrace God’s commands in our hearts. We are to so embrace our best understanding of God, we are to so embrace our best knowledge of what God would have us be and do that this knowledge, this understanding shapes our daily living. 

And if we do, the poet makes a strange promise that on the surface seems exaggerated: … for length of days and years of life and abundant welfare they will give you.” 

But is this really true? Will we live longer and have well-being if we focus on what we know about God and God’s will? Jesus certainly lived remembering God’s teachings; clearly these teachings were at the heart of his living, and yet he died a young man—crucified as a criminal, betrayed and abandoned by those closest to him. Paul also remembered God’s teachings, and these teachings were at the heart of his living, but he, too, did not have a long life, and as we humans judge such things, his living in response to those teachings did not bring him abundant welfare. I suspect each of us can name faithful, good persons we have known who suffered through all kinds of problems and who did not live a long life of abundance. 

So, what was the writer saying? Assuming he was not intentionally making false promises in the name of God, what did he mean? 

This is the meaning I see in his words. If we do we keep our focus on God and strive to do God’s will, then, we may not live more years, but our years will have a longer positive impact. When we keep the focus of our living on God, striving to do what we know in our hearts God wants us to do, the impact of our lives will be more than the sum of the years between birth and death. And when we live focused on the teachings of God, the well-being, the peace and joy Paul wrote about, is ours—even as we go through ordeals as difficult as those Paul experienced. 

Next the writer of this Proverb says: Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. 

This writer knew that one of the temptations with which we have to wrestle time and again is the temptation to give up. In sad and tragic times, when terrible and painful things happen to us or to persons we love, we are tempted to give up on God. Similarly, when others we have trusted and loved betray us and say and do what hurts us deeply and breaks our hearts, it is tempting to give up on them. When we are aware of the mess we have made of our lives, when we are aware of the harm we have done to others—especially those we love—it is tempting to give up on ourselves. 

To us the writer of Proverbs says: “Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you …” A better translation would be, “Do not let loyal love and faithfulness forsake you.” The Hebrew word translated as “loyalty” in the passage we read today is a concept that has to do with the kind of loyalty we see demonstrated by the father in the prodigal son story Jesus told.^[2] It was a mature loyalty of love, a strong loyal love, a tough and persistent love that would not allow the father to give up on either his younger son or his elder son. It is this kind of loyal love and faithful living that we are to hang on to—to bind around our necks and carve on the tablets of our hearts so that the winds of time and the storms of experience cannot erase it. 

When loyal love and faithfulness shape the way we live, the writer of this Proverb says that we will find favor and good repute both in the sight of God and of people. What was he saying? As I understand it, he was telling us that when loyal love and faithfulness shape our living—the way they shaped the living of the father of the prodigal son—then, we are living as God intends; and living as God intends, we make God smile. When we are living through the bad times and giving up on God, others or ourselves would be an understandable human response, but we instead focus on God in such a way that loyal love and faithfulness shape our living, then, we find ourselves respected by others; our living becomes a kind of role modeling. Or, as the writer stated, we find favor and good repute in the sight of others. 

Finally, the proverb we read tells us to place our trust in God, not in our own insights and wisdom. God has given us the ability to learn and think and understand. Sometimes we are so proud of what we have learned, we are so impressed with our ability to think, and so proud of what we understand, we begin to feel, behave, and even think as if we have outgrown our need for God. We trust our words as though they were the Word of God, and we act as though our schemes are the will of God. We are like the bright sophomore who had learned a lot, but who was still so ignorant he had begun to assume that because he had learned so much he had not known, he now knew about all there was to know. 

When we place our primary trust in our own brilliance and in our ability to manipulate others and control our lives, we invariably end up making a complicated mess of things—a tangle so complex that the more our pride causes us to pull on the tangle, the more difficult it becomes to undo. 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,” is what the writer of Proverbs urges and prays. “Do not rely on your own insight …” “Do not rely on your own insight. You will only make a complicated mess of things,” is what he is telling us. Only as we live trusting God so much that we continually seek God’s guidance will we be able to travel a straight path rather than wander through life as though it is a complicated maze. When we view ourselves as being so wise we do not need the guidance of God, we inevitably make things worse, and in making things worse, we participate in what is evil. 

Here is the way the passage we read puts it: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, [that is, be in awe, full of respect for the Lord], and turn away from evil.” When we live trusting and respecting God, seeking God’s will for our living, we are less likely to make a mess of our lives, and we are less likely contribute to making things worse in the world. 

The writer of the Proverb tells us that placing our lives in God’s hands, trusting God and seeking God’s guidance “… will be healing for your flesh and a refreshment for your body.” If we will live trusting God is the Lord of life rather than claiming that role for ourselves, we will be the whole persons who experience the abundant life Jesus mentions in the Gospel of John. 

I began this sermon saying that when our living has the right focus, then all the expressions of our living are in truth expressions of prayer. The Proverb I have been talking about describes this kind of focused living that in the deepest sense is an expression of prayer. 

The living this Proverb describes is focused on our knowledge of God and God’s will for our living. This kind of focused living enables our lives to make a lasting difference. When we live as this Proverb urges us to live, we are so focused on God and God’s grace that our living is shaped by loyal love and faithfulness, (even when life is painful, especially then), and when this is the way we live, our living not only pleases God, it is also a model for others to follow. When we deal with whatever confronts us focused on God, trusting God and relying on God rather than trying to handle it by ourselves, we experience the kind of peace and joy Paul wrote about, and the abundant kind of life Jesus mentioned. 

The essence of prayer is to focus on God. When we live as this Proverb urges us to live—focused on God—then all we say and do is an expression of prayer.
 

            God, help us keep our focus on you as we face whatever we are facing so that we will be the persons you intend us to be, saying and doing what you want said and done. Amen. 

Pastoral Prayer:
            God, on this day of Holy Communion, we pray to be in communion with you. Too much of the time we live as if you are absent or as if your presence does not matter. Filled with self-centered confidence, we do not even try to live in communion with you. We live as if we do not need you; we go through our days so full of ourselves we cannot imagine you making any real difference in our lives. Focused on ourselves, we move through our days deaf and blind to you and your love. God, forgive us and turn us around.
            Overcome our self-centeredness and our arrogance that leads us to ignore your presence and causes us to be insensitive to the workings of your grace. Overcome our doubt and skepticism, and motivate us to strive to be alert to your presence and open to your guidance. Help us live each day in communion with you.
            As we share in the service of Holy Communion, this is the prayer we offer in Jesus’ name. Amen.