Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” [Luke 11:1 (NLT)]
While asking one’s teacher how to pray was a typical request in Jesus’ day, Jesus was anything but a typical teacher. He’d walked on water, stilled storms, healed the sick, raised the dead, and turned water into wine, but His disciples didn’t ask how to do those impressive miracles. Instead, they asked Him how to pray.
Even though they didn’t completely recognize the divinity of Jesus, the disciples understood that His power seemed to come from prayer. Jesus prayed at his baptism and before choosing his disciples; He prayed before heading to Galilee and both before and after feeding the 5,000. He said a prayer of thanksgiving before offering His rest and yoke to the people and prayed with Peter, John, and James before His transfiguration. He prayed after healing people in Capernaum and before raising Lazarus from the dead. He prayed for the disciples and “all who will ever believe in me through their message.” [John 17:20] He prayed when blessing the little children, for Peter’s faith, in Gethsemane, and when He was nailed to the cross. When He wasn’t teaching or sleeping, Jesus seemed to be praying. In fact, he’d been praying when the disciples asked him how to pray!
Jesus didn’t conduct a seminar, preach a three-point sermon, categorize types of prayers, or set special requirements like those found in the Torah. He said nothing about the wearing of phylacteries, putting fringe on a prayer shawl, or the number of times to pray in a day. Instead of talking about prayer, Jesus simply prayed. This uncomplicated prayer we know as the Lord’s Prayer gave them (and us) the guidelines for all prayer. In simple everyday language Jesus offered praise, thanksgiving, petition, and asked for forgiveness and protection from evil.
Yet, for some reason, we Christians aren’t satisfied with such a straightforward process. Surely something as powerful as prayer should be more complicated! Convinced there must be a secret technique to mastering the art of prayer, we wonder if there are special words or phrases we should say. There aren’t. Prayer simply is an intimate interaction with God and isn’t supposed to be difficult. In fact, God really gave us only one rule: “You must not have any other god but me.” [Exodus 20:3]
Other than the Lord’s Prayer, which is just a blueprint for prayer, we haven’t been given a specific prayer to recite. In fact, the only prayer Jesus commends is perhaps the simplest one—that of the repentant tax collector who just said, “O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.” [Luke 18:13] It’s a plainly expressed sincere prayer, offered with a humble and repentant heart, and Jesus assures us that it will be heard.
We already know all we really need to know about prayer to pray and praying is far easier (and safer) than riding a bike. We just need to do it. Just like bike riding, however, we’ll get better at praying the more we do of it!
Prayer is talking with God. God knows your heart and is not so concerned with your words as He is with the attitude of your heart. [Josh McDowell]
Walking along the shoreline, I was surprised to see a baby opossum on the beach. A man with a large bucket was trying to scoop him up to return him to the safety of the mangroves but the little guy would have none of it. Lost and in danger of dying of thirst or becoming dinner for an osprey or eagle, I’m sure he thought he was on a wonderful adventure. Meanwhile, his mother was probably frantically searching the mangroves for her wayward child.
My husband loves to watch the chefs on Food Network but watching food being prepared on television doesn’t fill his empty stomach any more than just seeing his bottle will quiet a hungry baby. I could show you photos of the tulips and daffodils in Holland’s Keukenhof Gardens but that wouldn’t give you the experience of walking among hundreds of thousands of blooming flowers and smelling their fragrant aroma. You could tell me all about your children and even show me their pictures and, while I’d know about them and even recognize them, I wouldn’t know them until we met face to face and spent time together. Before I had my first child, I attended birthing classes and read all about labor and childbirth but nothing I learned came anywhere near to approximating the actual event! It’s been thrilling watching the Olympic athletes compete in the bobsled and monobob events, but watching from my sofa doesn’t come close to actually riding a sled down an icy track at more than 80-mph, dropping 384 feet in less than a mile while negotiating 16 turns, and feeling forces five times the pull of gravity on one’s body! Second-hand information is fine as far as it goes, but it never equals the genuine experience.
To some people, today is known as Groundhog Day but, because it is the fortieth day after Christmas, many Christians know it as Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord, or the Purification of Mary. According to Mosaic law, the mother of a boy child was considered “unclean” for seven days following the birth of her child. She then had to wait another 33 days to be purified from her bleeding before she could enter the Temple. (If she bore a girl child, her purification time was doubled.) Once a woman’s time of purification was over, she was to come to the Temple and offer up a sacrifice of both a lamb and a pigeon or turtledove. If the family couldn’t afford the lamb, a turtledove or pigeon could be substituted. Forty days after Jesus’ birth, in fulfillment of this law, Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to make their offering and present their son to the Lord.
The church in which I was raised recited a general confession during each service and I sometimes wondered why we bothered to confess. I reasoned that, since God sees everything we do, He already knows what sinners we are and what sins we’ve committed so why bother to tell Him what He already knows? Eventually, I understood that, while God knows what we’ve done wrong, He wants us to know it, too. Until we repent, how can we be redeemed? Until we acknowledge our guilt, how can we be pardoned? We must admit why we need forgiveness before we can accept it.
Every Thursday, my next-door neighbor has a standing two-hour appointment at the beach with a friend who lives about an hour north of here. Although marked on her calendar like a Bible study, committee meeting, doctor’s appointment, or book club, there’s nothing purposeful or especially important about their meeting. As she explained, the two simply meet to “catch up.” Unlike my neighbor, I’m more of a “let’s get down to business” than “let’s chat” type and, when I call or meet with someone, there’s usually a specific purpose for the contact. A few days ago, however, an old friend from our home town called for no reason other than to “catch up.” Neither of us had any important news; we just shared a little of what is going on in our lives. While the conversation accomplished nothing (and took me from my work), it was a much-appreciated blessing.
Devotions of the Heart 