The disciples were known to ask Jesus many different questions, and we would do good to stand with them asking, and listen intently to His answers and teaching. In particular, one such instance is found in the Gospel of,
“Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’”
Have you ever asked God or anyone how to pray?
Think of when the last time you were taught about prayer? I mean really taught about practical ways to expand your prayer life.
When do you find yourself praying the most?
Would your prayer life resemble more of a cosmic vending machine in the sky or a relational conversation with the Lord, master, and maker of all the universe?
Too often in today’s world, we treat prayer like a vending machine. We go to prayer when we want something. We rarely go to prayer to speak with God, and honestly, we can’t blame most people for treating prayer this way, because it is how they are conditioned to pray by many church cultures. We invite others and go to prayer in the church when we want to ask God to do something. We invite others and go to prayer in the church when we are challenged with something and are struggling. We invite others and go to prayer a majority of the time when we want something.
We are conditioned by our traditions some good mostly bad to pray like this because there isn’t a problem with asking God for something. In fact, He welcomes us to do just this. As Jesus taught the disciples how to pray he includes the line in,
Give us each day our daily bread,
Therefore we can clearly see it is okay for us to petition God for life-giving support because He is our life-giving support. However, this is but one line of Jesus’ teaching. There is so much more to this dynamic nature of prayer than a simple petition. Why then is a majority of prayer in our culture today prayers of petition. It is because most churches and teachers haven’t passed on the rich wholeness of what prayer is. We don’t teach about it anymore.
One of the books I am reading for my doctoral studies which inspired this post says,
For the most part, however, it was not something that they had ever been taught. They saw their parents pray and prayed at church. In times of crisis, they were encouraged by others to pray or had friends tell them that they would keep them in their prayers. But it was rare for them to be able to recall a time when someone had taught them how to pray or shared with them how they themselves pray. There where almost no designated guides in their congregations to whom they could turn if they wanted to learn more about prayer. It is almost as if they were expected to learn how to pray by osmosis through their informal participation in moments of prayer and by seeing and imitating others.”1
In other words, we have adopted the practice of expecting people to know how to do this vital and essential task of living a life of faith known as prayer, and the results of this have been disastrous for the church of this age.
Prayer isn’t taught through osmosis. Prayer is only taught through practice. How is one to practice if one doesn’t know how to pray. It is as if we expect that we could put a child in front of a TV watching basketball, and after enough time we could take this child and he would be able to play basketball proficiently. Sure he may learn most of the rules and rituals of the game this way, but there would be an extreme lacking of skill because he hasn’t played basketball. He only has watched others play.
We can all agree, and claim this to be an indisputable truth.
Why then in the church would we use this method to teach indispensable spiritual disciplines like prayer?
We must remember our faith is one of relationship with God. One of the critical ways we grow in this relationship is through prayer. Therefore, we should seek to learn authentic ways to pray. We should want to develop this skill and discipline of going to the Lord in prayer. Not just going in prayer to petition for something we want, but to go in prayer to grow in relationship with Him.
Church leaders this is your challenge. Teaching prayer through osmosis no longer can be our norm. We must take time, specific time, to walk with and teach people prayer intentionally.
Brothers and sisters this is your challenge. Find people who have strong prayer lives and ask them to mentor and teach you how to pray. In this pray. I mean really pray. Practice, practice, and practice this critical discipline of faith.
Could you imagine how this world, our lives, our faith could be changed if we would just learn to pray in a more holistic way, or as Jesus has taught us to pray in the Gospels in particular, ,
“When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.’”
More teaching on prayer to come from my lovely wife Jeannette in the near future.
1. Osmer, Richard R. The Teaching Ministry of Congregations. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. Page 299.