Spiritual Disciplines (prayer...)

During the 1980s, more than seventeen thousand members of a major evangelical denomination were surveyed about their prayer habits while attending seminars on prayer for spiritual awakening. Because they attended this kind of seminar, we can assume these people are above average in their interest in prayer. And yet, the surveys revealed that they pray an average of less than five minutes each day. There were two thousand pastors and wives at these same seminars. By their own admission, they pray less than seven minutes a day. It’s very easy to make people feel guilty about failure in prayer, and that’s not the intent of this chapter. But we must come to grips with the fact that to be like Jesus we must pray.

PRAYER IS EXPECTED

I realize that to say prayer is expected of us may make the children of a nonconformist, anti-authoritarian age bristle a bit. Those who have been brought under the authority of Christ and the Bible, however, know that the will of God is for us to pray. But we also believe that His will is good.

Jesus Expects Us to Pray

Don’t think of prayer as an impersonal requirement. Realize that it is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, with all authority and with all love, who expects us to pray. These excerpts from His words show that He Himself expects us to pray:

, “And when you pray.…”

, “But when you pray.…”

, “And when you pray.…”

, “This, then, is how you should pray: …”

, “So I say to you: Ask …; seek …; knock.”

, “Then Jesus told his disciples … they should always pray.”

Suppose Jesus appeared to you personally, much as He did to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos in , and said that He expected you to pray. Wouldn’t you become more faithful in prayer, knowing specifically that Jesus expected that of you? Well, the words of Jesus quoted above are as much His will for you as if He spoke your name and said them to you face to face.

God’s Word Makes It Clear

In addition to the words of Jesus, the unmistakable expectation of God from the rest of the New Testament is that we pray.

, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” Everyone is devoted to something. Most of us are devoted to many things. When you make something a priority, when you will sacrifice for it, when you will give time to it, you know you are devoted to it. God expects Christians to be devoted to prayer.

, “Pray continually.” While “Devote yourselves to prayer” emphasizes prayer as an activity, “Pray continually” reminds us that prayer is also a relationship. Prayer is in one sense an expression of a Christian’s unbroken relationship with the Father.

PRAYER IS LEARNED

If you are discouraged by the command to pray because you feel like you don’t know how to pray well, the fact that prayer is learned should give you hope. That means that it’s okay to start the Christian life without any knowledge or experience of prayer. No matter how weak or strong your prayer life is right now, you can learn to grow even stronger.

There is a sense in which prayer needs to be taught to a child of God no more than a baby needs to be taught to cry. But crying for basic needs is minimal communication, and we must soon grow beyond that infancy. The Bible says we must pray for the glory of God, in His will, in faith, in the name of Jesus, with persistence, and more. A child of God gradually learns to pray like this in the same way that a growing child learns to talk. To pray as expected, to pray as a maturing Christian, and to pray effectively, we must say with the disciples in , “Lord, teach us to pray.”

By Praying

If you’ve ever learned a foreign language you know that you learn it best when you actually have to speak it. The same is true with the “foreign language” of prayer. There are many good resources for learning how to pray, but the best way to learn how to pray is to pray.

By Meditating on Scripture

Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 70–71). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

This is one of the most compelling concepts on prayer I’ve ever learned. Meditation is the missing link between Bible intake and prayer. The two are often disjointed when they should be united. We read the Bible, close it, and then try to shift gears into prayer. But many times it seems as if the gears between the two won’t mesh. In fact, after some forward progress in our time in the Word, shifting to prayer sometimes is like suddenly moving back into neutral or even reverse. Instead there should be a smooth, almost unnoticeable transition between Scripture input and prayer output so that we move even closer to God in those moments. This happens when there is the link of meditation in between.

At least two scriptures plainly teach this by example. David prayed in , “Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my sighing.” The Hebrew word rendered as “sighing” may also be translated “meditation.” In fact, this same word is used with that meaning in another passage, : “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Notice that both verses are prayers and both refer to other “words” spoken in prayer. Yet in each case meditation was a catalyst that catapulted David from the truth of God into talking with God. In 5:1 he has been meditating and now he asks the Lord to give ear to it and to consider it. In we find one of the best-known statements about Scripture written anywhere, beginning with the famous words of verse 7, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul.” This section continues through verse 11 and then David prays in verse 14 as a result of these words and his meditation.

By Praying with Others

The disciples learned to pray not only by hearing Jesus teach about prayer, but also by being with Him when He prayed. Let’s not forget that the words “Lord, teach us to pray” didn’t just come as a random idea. This request followed a time when the disciples accompanied Jesus in prayer (). In a similar way, we can learn to pray by praying with other people who can model true prayer for us.

Let me add a word of encouragement. No matter how difficult prayer is for you now, if you will persevere in learning how to pray you will always have the hope of an even stronger and more fruitful prayer life ahead of you.

Whitney, D. S. (1991). Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 71–72). Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life Prayer Is Learned

PRAYER IS LEARNED

If you are discouraged by the command to pray because you feel like you don’t know how to pray well, the fact that prayer is learned should give you hope. That means that it’s okay to start the Christian life without any knowledge or experience of prayer. No matter how weak or strong your prayer life is right now, you can learn to grow even stronger.

There is a sense in which prayer needs to be taught to a child of God no more than a baby needs to be taught to cry. But crying for basic needs is minimal communication, and we must soon grow beyond that infancy. The Bible says we must pray for the glory of God, in His will, in faith, in the name of Jesus, with persistence, and more. A child of God gradually learns to pray like this in the same way that a growing child learns to talk. To pray as expected, to pray as a maturing Christian, and to pray effectively, we must say with the disciples in Luke 11:1, “Lord, teach us to pray.”