A DEVOTIONAL GUIDE FOR “THE TEN
TIMELESS VALUES FOR DISCIPLESHIP”
“Lord teach
us how to pray . . .” Luke 11:1
One of the most surprising
conversations between Jesus and the disciples took place when they had been
watching Jesus pray and went on to ask him to teach them how to pray. What is surprising is that these were good
faithful Jewish men whom we would assume had been praying all their lives. Something about Jesus’ prayer life made them
realize that there are many ways to pray.
Richard Foster’s book, “Prayer:
Finding the Heart’s True Home” has twenty-one chapters, each on a different
method of praying. The book of Psalms is
really a collection of different kinds of prayers. We might just assume that everyone naturally
knows how to pray, but forget that for many of us we were taught early on how
to pray. At bedtime our parents might
have taught us this prayer, “Now I lay me
down to sleep. I pray my Lord my soul to
keep. If I should die before I wake, I
pray my Lord my soul to take”, or at mealtime, “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food. By his
hands, we are fed, thank you God for daily bread.”, or at school or church
we learned, “Our Father who art in
heaven, hallowed by thy name . . . .”
Hopefully through those taught prayers we eventually learned to find our
own words for prayer, but how we prayed was taught to most of us. There are prayer acronyms like ACTS
(adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) and the “five finger
prayer”. I love one teacher’s simple
description of prayer, “HELP!!!!!!!!!!” (reminds me of Paul saying when we
don’t know how to pray the Holy Spirit will pray for us in groans not
words). Jesus gave a couple of pieces of
advice about praying like the story of the unjust judge and the widow in which
he said we should pray and not give up.
He warned about not praying like the religious professionals who prayed
on the street corner to be heard (pray instead in secret) or with many words
(or big words). He was more impressed
with the simple prayer of the tax collector who prayed, “Have mercy on me a
sinner”. While there are many ways to
pray, with words, without words, through the Word, without ceasing, with
persistence, asking and letting go, by faith, with honest doubt, praise,
thanksgiving, confessions, intercession, supplication, with authority, with
humility, etc, etc, etc, the most important thing is that we pray. The first chapter of Foster’s book is about
“simple prayer” in which we simply talk to God who is always listening. We open our heart to God in honesty (one of
the beautiful things about the Psalms who spill every emotion out to God in
prayer), because everyone wants to know that we are heard, that there is
someone who knows me so well that I don’t have to pretend or hide anything of
myself. Prayer itself is an act of faith
even when we feel our faith is small and fragile and in it we find the greatest
security, the unconditional love of our “Heavenly Father” who knows our needs
before we ask and longs that we ask anyway.
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