Thoughts on prayer

Many Christians know the Lords prayer by heart and, quoting from the 6th chapter of Matthew, it goes like this:

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom, and the power
And the glory, forever. Amen.

What a wonderful, simple prayer!! When Christ gave us these words, He was not saying that this is the exact prayer we should pray each time we approach the Throne of Grace, rather, He was giving us a foundation from which we can build our prayers that have all these elements in our prayerful approach to God.

First, we acknowledge who He is, He is our Father in Heaven, our Creator.

Second, we should tell Him that we can hardly wait for His Kingdom to arrive and that while we are waiting, we are praying that His will be done on earth (let’s get this kingdom going here, let’s not wait until that time when we are gathered in Glory).

Third, we don’t pray for all the things we want, we simply ask for what we need to get through the day, He knows those needs and will take care of us.

Fourth, we ask for forgiveness of sin and, this is very important, we are asking Him to forgive us in the same manner in which we have forgiven those who have sinned against us.

Fifth, we pray that God does not let us yield to temptation and that He keep us from the evil one. When we become Christians, Satan no longer has any power over us that we do not give him. Christ’s death and resurrection ended any influence that evil has in our lives. Yes, we can be tempted and yes we can yield to that temptation but the yielding is ours and the power given to Satan comes from our own desire to do evil, not because “the Devil makes us do it”.

Prayer is one of the very most important tools we can use in building our relationship with God. He speaks to us in so many ways, through His Word, music, other people and through just seeing the beautiful world He created. While we can serve Him in many ways, we have only one way of communicating with Him…through prayer.

We as Christians recognize the importance of prayer even when we fail to pray, or when praying, forget just what prayer is supposed to be.

The word prayer is so often used in our Christianese conversations with each other.
Examples:
I am praying for….
We are praying for….
Pray for me, I’m going to….
Christ’s words concerning prayer in Matthew Chapter 6 are wonderful in that they tell us how to pray but they also identify those things that we might think of as prayer but in reality are just ritualistic babblings. Remember, praying without sincerity is like taking a bath without water. You may go through the motions but in the end, you are still dirty.
Our prayers should not be designed to impress anyone; fancy words or endless repetitions are not effective prayers, they are mini-speeches designed to impress man, not to reach God.

We ask God for many things when we pray and sometimes don’t understand why our prayers aren’t answered. Far too often we are praying for the wrong things. I have heard some prayers that sounded like a child at Christmas reading the toy catalog aloud, “I want this, and this, and two of these, and don’t forget, I want everything from page 7. You get the idea. I can tell you that if we pray like that we are bound to be very disappointed and may even question God’s love and care for us. Don’t blame God when greed overpowers need. His promise is that He will supply our needs, not our wants.

When we pray that His will be done, that doesn’t mean that we get to tell Him what His will is; we should be praying for His will and also be entering into a willingness to accept His will even though it doesn’t match our own.

One final thought, when in prayer, we should talk less and listen more. Prayer should be a dialogue with the Father. Given the chance He does speak to our hearts and give us the guidance we so desperately need. He will provide what we need in life, not necessarily what we want. He will sustain us in crisis and comfort us in our troubles. He will rejoice with us in our triumphs over evil and Satan’s attempts to rule our lives but He will not give us the winning lottery numbers just because we ask for them!!!