Lord, Teach us to Pray

“Lord, teach us to pray…”

Luke 11:1

To me it seems to be one of the most seminal moments in the Gospels.  The disciples come to Jesus with what seems like a simple request.  “Lord, teach us to pray…”  Think of the implications of that request, of what it signals in their growth as disciples of Jesus Christ.  They wanted to learn how to pray.  They wanted to learn how to have a daily conversation with the God of heaven and earth.  The words of Psalm 42 were coming to life in the disciples -, “as a deer pants for flowing streams” so now their souls were thirsty for God.

This is on my mind this week because in our staff meetings here at Fishers, we talking about prayer… seeking to learn more about our daily conversation with the Lord.  We are reading and discussing a classic book on prayer by a sainted Lutheran Pastor from Norway – O. Hallesby.  It’s a great little book and I would recommend it to any of you longing for a deeper conversation with your Lord. 

This week, I thought I would wet your appetite with three lessons I learned this week from our study.  First, Hallesby writes, “We think we must help God to fulfill our prayers.”  In my own words – its not our job to tell God how to do His job!   Think about this.  Where we can see no way for God to answer our prayers, we find it hard to pray.  However, when we see any way for Him to do what we ask, we not only ask him but tell Him – “Lord, here is what you can do…”  Let me give you an example.  Right now our son Jon and his family are in preparation to turn to the USA to live.  I find myself not only praying for them and their needs in this process, but also praying about the things God ought to do to fill those needs – where He can find him work and so forth.  Who do I think I am to tell God how to do His job?  Much better is what Mary does when they run out of the wine at the wedding.   She simply says to Jesus, “They have no more wine.”   She goes to the right person with the need – Jesus.  She tells Him the need. Yet no where does she tell him what He should do about it.  That’s one big lesson for me – I pray. But I leave the listening and answering in God’s hands.

Hallesby then points out a second grave mistake in prayer.  “We make use of prayer for the purpose of commanding God to do our bidding.”  Once again let me put this in my own words – praying is about us submitting to the Lord, not the Lord submitting to us.  Too often I find myself giving the Lord a laundry list of things He can do for me.  Its almost like a “spiritual honey do list…”  Yet notice again Mary’s attitude.  After she brings the need to Jesus, she receives a fairly sharp response.  “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”   She responds completely different than my mom might have.  She does become defensive or get angry.  She doesn’t bow up. She doesn’t argue with him, or try to change His mind She accepts his response.  She submits.  That’s really an important lesson in prayer.  I don’t pray to God not in order to shape Him according to my will, but so that He might shape me according to His will!  The best example of this is Jesus Himself who in the Garden prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will but Thy will be done.”

Finally, Hallesby points to one final prayer flaw – “We forget to pray in Jesus name.”  Don’t misunderstand that.  He doesn’t mean that we forget to use the words.  You can say those words at the end of every prayer and still not be praying in Jesus’ name.  These words are not some kind of magic password that get you into God’s presence.  They are rather words of faith.  They remind us that there is nothing in us that commend our prayers to God.  Instead our confidence in prayer is centered in the merits of Jesus Christ.  We add this words as an expression of the reason for our confidence in prayer.  We are not heard because we deserve to be heard.  We don’t.  We are heard because our God is a gracious God.  We are heard because He gave His Son to open for us the way into God’s presence.   He gave His Son to open that way by dying for our sins and rising again.  We are heard for Jesus’ sake… in His name, not our own.  Because of Jesus and only because of Jesus we can “approach the throne of grace with confidence that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  That’s what it means to pray in Jesus’ name.  That’s the kind of daily conversation we are invited to have with our heavenly Father.