A Life of Prayer

Luke 5:16 (ESV)

“But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray”

The Pastor was preaching about the importance of practicing prayer every day of your life.  As an illustration he talked about being with his father in the car.  Suddenly a car going the opposite direction swerved and came right towards them.  “I’ll never forget what my dad said in that moment of crisis.  He didn’t cuss.  He didn’t scream.  He said, ‘Lord help us.’  My father’s first instinct was to pray. Why?  Because he was a man of prayer.  He prayed daily.  Prayer was so much a part of who he was that in a moment of crisis to pray was the most natural thing for him to do.  Prayer was just part of his way of life.” 

Prayer was also the way of life for our savior Jesus.  The references to him praying are all over place in the Gospels.  Mark writes that rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. Luke tells us that Jesus often retreated to desolate places to pray.  Prayer was our Lord’s way of life.  His disciples longed for that way of life.  So it’s no wonder they came to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”

What Jesus teaches them and us about prayer are life altering.  For in teaching us to pray Jesus is inviting us to a life shaped by our relationship with Him.  Think for a moment about how important conversation is in any relationship.  A couple that isn’t talking to each other is a couple that is growing further apart.  But a couple that is able to talk to each other about anything and everything is a couple growing closer and closer together.  In other words, for good or bad a couple’s relationship is shaped by the way they talk with each other.  It’s no different in our relationship with God. Prayer is our daily, conversation with God. 

The first thing He teaches us is that in prayer we come before God as beggars.   In the Lord’s Prayer, the one Jesus taught us, we don’t bring anything to God.  We only ask.  Help us Lord to keep Your name holy, because our natural state is to profane your name… to stub our toes,and use your name as a cuss word.  “Thy Kingdom come…”  We make a mess of things when we try to run our lives.  So we need You, Lord, to be our king. “Give us this day our daily bread,” because everything we need comes from You.  .  Forgive us our trespasses”  we pray, for we are poor miserable sinners.  Finally, “Lead us not into temptation” – in other words protect our hearts and minds from thinking things we shouldn’t think… from thinking things that will lead us to doing things we shouldn’t do.”  Its just like the hymn says, “Nothing in my hands I bring.  Simply to Thy cross I cling.”  Our life of prayer begins with the humble recognition that we are but beggars before God.    

But it doesn’t end there.  For What Jesus also teaches us is that in prayer we come to God as His beloved children!  Among families of German ancestry very often the first prayer children are taught is this one – “Abba, liebe Vater.  Amen!”  The best translation of that is “Daddy, dear father, amen.”  It comes from the first words that Jesus teaches us to pray – “Our Father who art in heaven…”  “With these words, Luther writes, God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and we are His true children so that with all boldness and confidence we might ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.”   When our kids really wanted me to say yes to something they would send Bethany into ask me.  I guess they knew she had me wrapped around her finger.  Well in our prayers we come to God based on the good graces of our elder brother Jesus – Jesus who came… who lived our lives, died in our place and rose again to open the way to the Father.   

Finally, We pray our prayers in the confidence that our God desires to give us good gifts.  Sometimes that is hard to see… hard to believe.  Faye Werner was an elderly woman paralyzed from the waist down.  Every night she prayed that God would take her home and end her pain.  “Why am I still here every morning Pastor?”  Such struggles and doubts are natural.  Yet in the midst of them, we pray in the confident faith that God is listening… that He does desire good things for you and me. For He says to us, And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

A life of prayer is the best way of life…. Let it be our way of life every day… practiced every day – so that when life swerves straight towards us out of oncoming traffic – we know right where to go… to God in pray.  Amen.