....praying

 There are times when I tell my children to do something and they hear "request". I say to them, "When you clean your room be sure to remember to straighten the bottom of your closet."  What they hear is, "If you clean your room you 'may' want to straighten up the bottom of your closet." I am not sure what happens between the time the words leave my mouth and enter their ears, but something surely takes place.

 

This problem is not isolated to children.  We, who are older, suffer the same disorder. When we read God's Word, through which He speaks to us, we often hear something much different than what He says. Our response often reveals that we did not pay attention, hear correctly, or that we have ignored God's direction.

In His Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 6:5, Jesus says, "When you pray..." Listen carefully. Jesus repeats it in verse 7 - "When you pray..." There is a powerful assumption in this statement. Jesus assumes His disciples ARE praying. He does not command us to pray, but instructs us on how we are to pray, assuming that we are already praying.

It has often been said it is much easier to talk about prayer than to pray. We are great examples of that. The prayer workshops, books, and Bible studies are innumerable. We want to rush past the "when you pray" of Jesus' teaching and get to the "do's" and "don'ts" He speaks about. The instruction and discussion are important, otherwise Jesus wouldn't have given it. 

But, the daunting question before us is not "if we know how to pray". Rather, it is, "are we praying"? Jesus' "when you pray" places a criterion before us that requires self-examination. Even now, I am tempted to discuss the reasons why we avoid prayer, or do not pray, or hesitate to pray. But after all the discussion, this question remains - do we pray?

In Luke 11:1 Jesus is praying and when He gets done, one of His disciples comes up to Him and requests, "Lord, teach us to pray."  Jesus responds, "When you pray" and proceeds to give a pattern prayer. The request was "teach us to pray" but Jesus gives a pattern. They didn't need to be taught to pray. His followers desire to pray and they are compelled to pray. His disciples are a praying people. What was needed was instruction on how.

    It is not that we should not study about prayer.

    It is not that we should neglect learning about how to pray.

    It is that we should be praying as we study and learn.

 

No one needs to teach us to talk with family and friends. Even the smallest infant attempts to communicate with its parents. Though we do not need to learn to pray, we do need to be taught how.

The Word of God is our meat and drink. Prayer is our breath. As eating and breathing are necessary for us to live, so feasting on God's Word and praying to Him are for those in Christ. Whether the babbling prayers of an infant Christian or the mature prayers of the seasoned saint - let us pray!

-gerald wherstone