Lord, I Keep Getting a Busy Signal

By William Powell Tuck

Do you feel like your prayers are not heard?

Prayer has often been described simply as communicating with God. How many of us talk to God daily? If we did not speak to our spouse daily, how much would we know about her/him?

Dr William Powell Tuck brings not only years of studying the Scripture but perhaps more importantly his own prayer experience and his time as a pastor, counseling and teaching others. "I have often been embarrassed to admit that praying has not come so easily or naturally to me," he confesses in this book. This frank and open attitude gives us all a renewed hope, makes us eager to see what Dr Tuck has to say about prayer, and try his suggestions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Mar 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781631990175

William Powell Tuck

William Powell Tuck has served as pastor in Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Louisiana and was Professor of Preaching at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has written more than two hundred articles for professional or scholarly journals and is the author or editor of sixteen books, including The Compelling Faces of Jesus, Knowing God: Religious Knowledge in the Theology of John Baillie, and The Meaning of the Ten Commandments Today.

Book preview

Other Books by

William Powell Tuck

The Way for All Seasons

Facing Grief and Death

The Struggle for Meaning (Editor)

Knowing God: Religious Knowledge in the Theology of John Baillie

Our Baptist Tradition

Ministry: An Ecumenical Challenge (Editor)

Getting Past the Pain: Making Sense of Life’s Darkness

A Glorious Vision

The Bible as Our Guide for Spiritual Growth (Editor)

Authentic Evangelism: Sharing the Good News with

Sense and Sensitivity

The Lord’s Prayer Today

Through the Eyes of a Child

Christmas Is for the Young…Whatever Their Age

Love as a Way of Living

The Compelling Faces of Jesus

The Left Behind Fantasy: The Theology Behind the Left Behind Tales

The Ten Commandments: Their Meaning Today

Facing Life’s Ups and Downs

The Church in Today’s World

The Church Under the Cross

Modern Shapers of Baptist Thought in America

The Journey to the Undiscovered Country: What’s Beyond Death?

A Pastor Preaching: Toward a Theology of the Proclaimed Word

The Pulpit Ministry of the Pastors of River Road Church, Baptist (Editor)

The Last Words from the Cross

Overcoming Sermon Block (APC)

LORD, I KEEP GETTING A BUSY SIGNAL

REACHING FOR A BETTER

SPIRITUAL CONNECTION

WILLIAM POWELL TUCK

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, FL

2014

Copyright © 2014, William Powell Tuck

Some Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible (RSV), copyright 1946, 1952 © 1971, 1973, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.

Some Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible (NRSV), copyright © 1989 by the Division of the Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

Some Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV), in the public domain.

Some Scripture quotations are from The New English Bible (NEB). Copyright © the Delegates of the Oxford University Press and the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, 1961, 1970.

Some Scriptures are the author’s translations.

Cover Image from Dreamstime, ID #1711902 © Rossco | Dreamstime.com; Cover Design: Henry E. Neufeld

Electronic ISBN: 978-1-63199-017-5

Print ISBN13: 978-1-63199-004-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014934811

Energion Publications

P. O. Box 841

Gonzalez, FL 32560

850-525-3916

energion.com

[e-mail]

In memory of Catherine Maddox Campbell

Who first introduced Emily, her daughter, and my wife,

to the significance of prayer

Table of Contents

Preface vii

1 Lord, I Keep Getting a Busy Signal 1

2 Praying with Understanding 15

3 Disciplines for Spiritual Growth 27

4 How to Read the Bible Today 45

5 Reaching for the Unattainable 65

6 When You Can’t Pray Anymore 85

A Suggested Bibliography 97

Preface

Throughout my life I have sought to commune with God. I have undertaken this endeavor in many places. I have found moments of contemplation in —

quiet, small, white-framed country churches, in large traditional or contemporary-designed urban churches, in ancient Gothic cathedrals in Europe, in a Quaker Meeting House, and in tent meetings,

by lakes, rivers, creeks or sea shores,

on secluded wooden mountainsides, on top of an extinct volcano, on white and black sand beaches, by campfires at night,

before a blazing fire in my own den, in my study, on park benches,

walking through multicolored hillsides in the fall,

pausing beside a snow blanketed field, beside waterfalls,

jogging along roadsides,

following the path of saints from the past, secluding myself from others,

fasting,

finding an oasis of quiet in a noisy city and immersing myself in its stillness, and in many other ways.

In many and varied modes, I have looked for ways to meditate. I have seldom found this desire so easily met or the place and conditions ideal. I have often been embarrassed to admit that praying has not come so easily or naturally to me.

I thought for a long time that this was simply a reflection on my personality or background. I soon discovered, however, in my Christian pilgrimage that most persons I know struggled with the same difficulty. Too many laypersons were content to have their pastor do their praying for them on Sunday morning. Prayer was not their thing. In our busy, modern world, prayer seems so remote, old-fashioned, and impractical. Leave prayer to the professional holy men and women. We have real work to do, they say.

Yet, I have heard ministers complain because laypersons interrupt their time for praying and give them so much busy work that they have little time to pray. One minister I know got in trouble with his church because he refused to give up the time he had set aside for prayer to attend a denominational breakfast meeting. He considered his prayer time so important that he would not let anything change it, even a denominational church meeting.

On the other hand, I have heard lay persons express dismay that their minister was not a praying person and refused to offer them any spiritual guidance. I have also known many devoted ministers and laypersons who have longed to deepen their spiritual life. My spiritual life has been enriched by both laypersons and ministers. I know one layman who arises each morning at 5:30 a. m. and prays and meditates for an hour. He has continued this practice for twenty-five years. I know a minister who sets aside several hours a day for quiet reflection. Are these persons exceptions? I am afraid they are.

I am convinced that one reason more laypersons and ministers do not spend more time in meditation is not because these persons do not love God or the Christ-like way, but they lack spiritual discipline to aid them in their religious journey. This little book is one pilgrim’s suggestions on what has been meaningful to him. I have not tried to offer more than a brief sketch to throw some light on the path. I do not believe that our habits of superficial prayer time will ever change until we take seriously the necessity for spiritual disciplines.

During part of the writing of these pages, I secluded myself in a retreat setting at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky. Here in this Trappist monastery, established in 1848 and dedicated to prayer, silence and labor, I went apart to learn from those who take prayer so seriously that they have devoted their lives to it. Observing these monks as they chant their psalms and prayers to God and silently go about their daily tasks has been a real lesson in spiritual values for me. I realize that I, who claim to be a spiritual leader, have not taken the power of prayer seriously enough and feel ashamed of my devotion to God measured by these men. Their devotion to discipline inspires me to a more meaningful discipline of my own. The road lies before me and you. We can choose the easy, superficial way or the higher path of meaningful, deep meditation and prayer. The most famous of the Trappist monks, Thomas Merton, has observed:

The fact remains that contemplation will not be given to those who willfully remain at a distance from God, who confine their interior life to a few routine exercises of piety and a few external acts of worship and service performed as a matter of duty. . . God is only invited to enter this charmed circle to smooth out difficulties and to dispense rewards.¹

If you and I are going to experience more than a nod to God in our devotional life, then a genuine commitment has to be made to spiritual solitude and meditation. If the real purpose of the contemplative life is to be in union with God in our desires and goals, then prayer cannot be confined to the marginal and secondary areas of our life. Contemplation—to think the thoughts of God after God—will not be achieved by careless, lazy or infrequent methods. A depth of discipline will be required. There can be no greater joy than the knowledge that I am in God and God is in me.

Several of these chapters were presented as a part of the Offterdinger-Williamson Preaching & Lecture Series at the First Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. I appreciate their gracious response to the presentations. I want to express my appreciation to Carolyn Stice, my secretary at St Matthews Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky for ten years, for typing this manuscript through several drafts. She always acted like it was no real effort when I knew otherwise. I also want to express my thanks to Sandra Bundick, the former Administrative Assistant at Hampton Baptist Church in Hampton, Virginia where I had the privilege of serving, for getting the manuscript in final form. The labor of both of these persons is greatly appreciated.

I send this small volume out with the prayer that others will be enriched in their contemplative life by it.

---

1 Thomas Merton, What Is Contemplation? (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 1978), 12.

Chapter 1

Lord, I Keep Getting a Busy Signal

To be very frank, I have to tell you that it has never been easy for me to understand people for whom praying comes easily. It has always been a struggle for me. It has been a struggle to find the time, to keep the time, to make it meaningful, to avoid interruption, and to sense the reality of the presence of God always in my prayer time. There are some people who make me very uncomfortable with their concept of prayer. To me, their God seems a bit like a bellhop. You simply give him your wish and God is supposed to do it. To some, prayer is like a rabbit’s foot or a luck charm. You carry it with you in case you get in some kind of trouble and then you pray. Prayer for others is a kind of Aladdin’s Lamp. You rub it and your wishes are instantly satisfied. People like this make me very uncomfortable with their understanding of prayer.

Then there are others who know something about struggle in praying. They have prayed to God, lifted up their voices toward heaven, but heaven seemed to be made of brass. They have voiced their wishes to God, their needs to God, their hopes to God, their aspirations to God, and yet they keep getting a busy signal. Lord, they say, I pray, but I only get a busy signal. Their prayers seem to go unanswered. A mother whose son was a soldier in Iraq prayed that her son would come home