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April 2, 2025 15 mins

In this thought-provoking episode of the Radio Coffee House, Clint Armitage explores the transformative power of prayer, inspired by an insightful interview with Jonathan Roumie, the star of the hit series "The Chosen." In the heart of the discussion, Clint reflects on Jonathan's passionate perspective on prayer as a vital connection to God, emphasizing how it can shape our spiritual lives and provide solace during life's challenges.

The episode features a compelling clip where Jonathan shares his personal experiences with prayer, including the impactful Surrender Novena—a prayer that encourages believers to hand over their burdens to Jesus. He also highlights a moving story of a couple who, after facing the heartbreak of two miscarriages, found strength and healing through consistent prayer, ultimately leading to the birth of a healthy baby boy.

As Clint unpacks these themes, he addresses common misconceptions about repetitious prayers, particularly within Catholic traditions, and contrasts them with biblical teachings. He draws parallels to Jesus' teachings in Matthew 6, urging listeners to focus on the sincerity of their prayers rather than the quantity of words. Through engaging anecdotes and scriptural references, Clint invites listeners to reconsider their own prayer practices and to embrace a deeper, more meaningful dialogue with God.

Tune in to this episode of the Radio Coffee House to explore how prayer can be a powerful tool for surrender and connection, and discover how it can enrich your relationship with God in profound ways.

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🗣️ Quotes from Jonathan Roumie

"For me, it has been a way to keep me completely focused on God."

"Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything."

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🗣️ Quotes from Clint Armitage

"It's not vain when you say words that bring you closer to God."

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome, um, to another edition of the Radio Coffeeh House
show, where Jesus meets coffee meets talk
radio. And the next one starts right
now.
Hey, how's it going, everybody? Playing Armitage with the Radio Coffee
House back for another episode. Today we're
talking about prayer. And what I did

(00:23):
was I caught an episode of Tucker Carlson. He was
interviewing Jonathan Rumi, the star of the Chosen.
And Jonathan was talking about prayer. And. And I liked
what he was saying. Now, he was also talking about
the Halo app that he supports
and he actually lends his voice to. But
he also, his focus was talking about prayer.

(00:43):
So he was asked about the Hallow app, and he began talking about the
app. But what I want to focus on was what he started
bringing up about prayer and how
prayer actually gets involved in your spiritual
life, in your life with God, speaking with God,
being with God, getting closer to God, and it all happens in
prayer. So let's listen into

(01:03):
what Jonathan has to say, our prayer, and then I'm going to
talk about some things related to that.
All right, let's listen to the clip. Let's do this.
For me, it has been
a, uh, way to keep me completely focused

(01:23):
on God. When I'm in the
middle of life. It can
be. It's an opportunity for me to
access, um, my faith
in a consistent way, uh,
and to get through life's
biggest challenges. I
mean, there's so many prayers on this app

(01:46):
that I use daily. Like,
daily. Um, and,
you know, for instance, there's a prayer called the
Surrender Noven. Novena, just. It's a
Latin word, just means nine days. So it's a prayer you say
for nine days. And, uh,
this particular prayer has been

(02:06):
so valuable to so many people.
Basically, it's very simple, but you
repeat it like 10 times.
And there's all in the app, like, it
walks you through it. But the
essence of it is this prayer
where you simply say, oh,
Jesus, I surrender myself to

(02:27):
you, take care of everything.
Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of
everything. And you Repeat that like 10 times.
And the number of people
that have experienced
profound grace and,
um, just

(02:48):
ease of their burden, the lightness of the
weight in their life has been.
I mean've, I've never
heard of a prayer that's had such a profound effect. Like the rosary is another
one. So there was this couple.
They were, uh, trying to have their first baby.
They had a miscarriage.

(03:10):
They were in a pretty severe
state. Crisis,
depression, everything that comes with that. Yes,
they see an ad for Hallow. Um, they Download the app. They
start praying. Specifically
they start praying the surrender prayer that I was telling you about.
This surrender novvena and the rosary. They were Catholic as
well, so they'familiar with them. So they prayed the rosary.

(03:33):
Super powerful weapon and the surrender
novven
and they get pregnant again
and their relationship is really growing together in
faith and in God's strongest that it's ever
been five months and uh,
they lose the baby

(03:57):
and they're holding their past.
Some would passed away.
And the words that come to mind
for this woman is the surrender prayer.
Oh Jez, I surrender myself to you.
Take care of everything'the first words that come to our mind.

(04:18):
M and they told us,
they said that if they hadnt gotten
into this
consistent routine of
communicating with God through prayer, if their faith hadn't
been strengthened, that
second miscarriage would have destroyed their
marriage. But it didn't.

(04:41):
And they kept going. A, uh, year later
they had a healthy baby boy.
And the first words that came out of her mouth that time
was the prayer from numbers.
Lord bless you and keep you. Lord S.H. china's face
upon you. Be grace to you. Um, the Lord look kindly

(05:02):
upon you and give you peace.
Like the son's name is Jack, I think.
And so
the power of having that
relationship, the power of prayer, the power of being
in a constant dialogue with God. It's what we

(05:23):
were made designed to worship.
We were designed for that relationship. It's in our DNA.
And the more we try to ignore it or
squash it or bury it or ignore it or pretend it
doesn't exist or that it's not there or replace it with something
else, the more
we just, um, run in circles. The more we try to

(05:43):
fill that hole with something else, with some
other, ah, vice, some other,
um, um, endeavor, some
other, uh, righteous
indignation of something, um,
some other effort that will
never substitute, never
replace our need for God. It'll

(06:04):
never replace it.
All rightt. So pretty cool insight from Jonathan. And you could tell his
heartfelt and all in all was just good information
for believers right now. I used to have
this thought when I was younger
about Catholics and when they did the
rosary and like Jonathan said with
this uh, novena prayer and all that, I used to

(06:25):
think, huh, huh. I wonder if that means what the Bible
says about vain, repetitious prayer.
Is that what they're talking about? Is God saying,
you know, on the Sermon on the Mount, was Jesus talking about, like
Catholics, the way they say prayer over and
over? Is that what he's talking about? And that's What I used to
think about Catholics when I was younger.

(06:45):
Now I have a totally different thought process
now about it because, you know, I've
actually researched it and look into it. And then I also have spoken
to some Catholics and I see, I mean, for instance, like
Jonathan Rumi, you know, there'sincere prayers
going up to God from someone like him and other
Catholics that I've seen, that I've spoke to, that
I've experienced. And so my thought

(07:08):
doesn't go along that route anymore, not at
all. Now of course there are people, there are Catholics, there are, ah,
you know, non denominational Christians, there's Lutherans, there's
Methodists, all these different types of people
who actually do participate in vain prayer
because they're praying worthless or
useless prayers, something that is just

(07:28):
repeated over and over and they're not even praying to
God about it. It's not really a sincere thing. They're
not motivated by getting closer to God,
getting to know God better. And so that's kind of useless,
that's vain. And I believe that's what the Bible's talking
about. And it's in Matthew 6, it's Matthew
6, starting in verse 5. And I'm going to read.

(07:48):
I'mnna read through. This is just before Jesus gives the
prayer to the disciples and teaches them how to
pray, right? He says this in verse five. And
when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street
corners to be seen by others.
Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward

(08:08):
in full. But when you pray, go into your
room, close the door and pray to your Father who is
unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done
in secret, will reward you. And when you
pray, do not keep on babbling like
pagans, for they think they will be heard because
of their many words. Do not be like them. For

(08:28):
your Father knows what you need before you ask
him. Okay? So you can see
and even before that portion of Scripture
right there, it talks about giving to the needy. And don't let your left hand
know what your right hand is doing. It's about this show,
like this show of hey, I'm so pious, I'm so great, look
at me. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing,

(08:49):
see? It's the motivation behind it. And that's what
chapter six is basically hitting on in
the first, you know, six verses. That's
what it's talking about. And then when we're talking about
not babbling like the
pagans, for they think they will be
heard because of their many words. Like they
just are just talking to talk,

(09:11):
talking to hear themselves talk. It's not really
trying to make a connection with God, not really trying to
draw closer to God, get to know him better,
and really connect. And you can see the
motivation behind it. And that's what Jesus is talking about. Don't
babble. Don't say these useless words. And that's what
vain means, right? Like useless, like not

(09:31):
worth anything. It's vain, it's no
use. So don't even do that. And then he says, don't do it like the
pagans. And so the first thing I think
of when it says, and when you pray, do not
babble on like the pagans.
I think of First Kings 1,
Kings, in chapter 18, when
Elijah was battling the prophets of

(09:53):
Baal up on Mount Carmel. Remember, they were going to go
sacrifice the bulls, and
they sent up 450 of those priests, the
prophets of Baal, to come up. They're basically battling,
like, who has the real God, Elijah or these
prophets of baal. And so Elijah said to the
prophets of Bal. And this is again, this is 1 Kings 18, starting verse

(10:13):
25, he says, Elijah said to the prophets of
Baal, choose one of the bulls and prepare it
first. Since there are so many of you, call on the
name of your God, but do not light the fire. So they
took the bull given them and then prepared it. Then they
called on the name of BAAL from morning
until noon. See? And that's where, um,

(10:33):
I, uh, connect the whole Matthew 6 here,
which says, don't babble. Don't babble like the
pagans do. And man, that's exactly what I thought
of after doing a little bit of research. I was like, oh, yeah,
this is the one right here. Then they called on the name of
BAAL from morning until noon. They literally
were calling on this false
God for hours for no reason.

(10:56):
Again, it's in vain. You're not calling on a real
God. You're not trying to connect with God because that, that
isn't even God. And you're a pagan just repeating
your words over and over and over for
hours. And that's why Elijah taunted them. And
that's why when Elijah prayed, he said it
quick. And this is Elijah's prayer. This is
basically all he said. He didn't go for hours. He said this.

(11:19):
He goes, lord, the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Israel, let it be known today
that you are, uh, a God in Israel. And that I am
your servant and have done all these things at your command.
Answer me, Lord. Answer me so these people will know
that you, Lord, are God and that you
are turning their hearts back again. Then

(11:39):
the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice,
the wood, the stones, the soil, and also licked
up all the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they
fell prostrate and cried, the Lord, he is
God. The Lord, he is God. You
see, Elijah's not standing there for hours calling
out these vain repetitions, right? That's what I connected
Catholic prayer to that, the rosary, praying of the rosary

(12:02):
and stuff. But I don't believe that anymore. Uh, let me
repeat what he said. So
Jonathan says that the novena prayer, you repeat
it and you say it nine times or over nine
days. He said you repeated it like 10 times over a period of
nine days. But every day you
say, oh, Jesus, I
surrender myself to you, take care of

(12:25):
everything. How simple, how
profound. But yet literally, it's a
submissive prayer where you're just submitting
yourself, asking God to just take
it from you, whatever it is,
because you surrender yourself to him.
Is there something wrong with repeating that? And

(12:45):
if you've ever done prayer like
Nehemiah, remember Nehemiah, when the
king asked him, hey, Nehemiah, what do you need? He's like, oh, I
better say a prayer. And he says a prayer right off the bat.
It's these prayers of surrender, giving yourself
up to God. I don't think there's a problem
of repeating that
over a certain period of time, over, you know, 10

(13:08):
days. Now, I'm not Catholic, I just let you know that right
now. I'm not Catholic. I grew up Methodist
and now I'm non denominational Christian. But
it is not vain
when you just say words that bring
you closer to God, even if you say
them multiple times, it's not vain.

(13:29):
Oh, Jesus, I surrender myself
to you, take care of everything. Oh,
Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take
care of everything. You know how many times we'd
like to pray that when we're in distress?
When we're in distress, it's not about praying these
long prayers when we're in distress.

(13:49):
It's these short, impactful prayers that
do something to our soul. It comforts us
and then God hears it, and then he answers our
prayer and then he comforts us. And it's
simply saying words that connect you
to the true and living God that
created the universe, that can change your

(14:10):
universe. No matter what's happening in your
life. That's the type of prayer
that we need. That's the type of prayer
that everyone should have. And so
the way I used to think about vain, repetitious prayers
is not what I think now. As long as you're
praying to God, truly,
sincerely, calling out to

(14:32):
him, surrendering yourself to him,
he's gonna hear your prayer. He's going toa hear it al
right. Well, hopefully that clears things up. Although
you may not have had that issue that I had
about prayer, but if you did, hopefully that cleared some things
up for you and maybe you got some insight from the other
stuff, who knows? But either way, let's keep
praying to God so that we can surrender ourselves to him

(14:55):
and get closer and closer to him. My name is Clint
Armitage. This is the Radio Coffee House. Thanks for
coming back and until next time, stay safe
and God bless.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Radio Coffee
House show where we're all about Jesus, coffee

(15:17):
and radio. We'll see you next time.
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