Prayer

Prayer

"How's your prayer life?" My friend loved to ask questions like this to make me squirm. When I had suffered enough, he said, "I've asked that question of all kinds of people and every one has expressed some kind of dissatisfation about the quality or quantity of prayer in his or her life." This is probably true for all of the spiritual disciplines, but because we see prayer as pivotal, it serves as a lightening rod.

We know prayer is important because of the biblical emphasis on it. We see Jesus as a man of prayer. For example, in Luke 6:12 we read of him going out to a mountain to pray all night long.

Jesus also taught about prayer. He said things like: "when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. (Matthew 6:5-7 ESV)

The apostle Paul also set an example by recording several prayers in his letters and he, too, taught about the importance of prayer, the need for prayer, and the effects of prayer. I won't even attempt to convince you that Christians should approach prayer seriously. Most of us instinctively know it, even if we would condemn ourselves regarding our diligence in practicing it.

We take a disciplined approach to prayer for several reasons. The easiest one is to follow Christ’s example and obey biblical commands. A little beneath the surface are some other reasons. Prayer allows us to engage personally with God, to practice His presence. Disciplined prayer also makes sure that time with God is not crowded out of our lives by sloth from within or urgencies from without. Most of us pray because we sense a need of some sort. When trouble comes, praying is as instinctive for the Christian, as crying is for the child. We hurt; we want God to do something about it. As we mature, though, we discover that our agenda may not fit perfectly with God's. Only after we spend a great deal of time with Him, do we internalize his values, priorities and will.

Some of us love to measure progress. We like to see positive change in our lives. We seem to need that encouragement to keep on. For those who fall into this category, we'd like to be able to evaluate our prayer life. I've learned that success in our prayer life is not measured by the degree to which we can get God to react to people and circumstances as we see them, but the degree to which we come to react to people and circumstances the way God sees them.

Because of our tendency to sin, even a disciplined approach to prayer can be tainted. This emphasis may lead to our limiting prayer to a structured time and form. But prayer needs both sponenaity and structure. We lose out if we practice one at the expense of the other. Prayer can also degenerate into the subjective ramblings of a dissatisfied soul trying to get God to give it what it wants. In some cases, prayer can also be pressed into service as a vehicle of self-promotion in the Christian community, used as nothing more than a mechanism for showing off our supposed spiritual depth in public.

I'll close today's thoughts with some practical tips regarding the discipline of prayer:

Ron Hughes
© June 2008