Teach Us to Pray

“Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…’” ~Luke 11:1

How’s your prayer life? Most of us of us blush at hearing that question. It is one of the most penetrating questions you can be asked concerning your spiritual life because prayer and spiritual vitality are so intricately linked. As one author has said, “Spiritual growth is impossible apart from the practice of prayer.” So, how is your prayer life? Blushing yet?

I’m frequently asked about improving personal prayer: how to avoid distractions, how frequently to pray, how to pray Scripture, etc. These issues are typical of the dilemmas Christians face in their personal prayer lives. Often I will propose memorizing Scripture and using it as a guide to prayer, or perhaps using a good prayer resource, such as Matthew Henry’s A Way to Pray or Kenneth Boa’s Handbook to Prayer. But I’d like to suggest there’s something else that must be addressed. There’s something else going on for which a handbook or prayer guide might not be any help. You see, prayer is far more about heart posture than it is about formulae. Of course, we’ve been given the Lord’s Prayer (and other examples of prayer in Scripture) as a rule for our direction in the duty of prayer. The question, however, is not whether you can recite the Lord’s Prayer with your eyes closed, but whether you come to prayer with an apprehension of the majesty of God, a deep sense of your own unworthiness and sins, and a thankful and enlarged heart that humbly submits to the will of God.

Let’s focus in on one thing I just mentioned, referencing Westminster Larger Catechism 185: thankfulness. I love the way the Larger Catechism puts it in question 178: What is prayer? Answer: Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God…[with] thankful acknowledgement of His mercies. Let me commend to you the practice of cultivating thankfulness in your daily life, such that it begins to shape your prayers and increases their frequency and Godward focus.

What should we be thankful for, you ask? Everything! Acknowledging God’s mercies means looking at every sunrise, every star, every tree, every person with gratitude for His creation. Every breath you take and hug you give and tear you cry and song you hear and meal you eat is a reason to be thankful for life — abundant life!

When you pray with a heart full of thankfulness, it’s no longer a question of “How long or often can I pray?” It becomes a question of “Will I ever run out of things for which to thank God?” A heart full of thanksgiving acknowledges the mercies of God in all things, and cries out with praise for all His wonderful works in creation and redemption. It enlarges our hearts to God and fills our prayers with words of thanksgiving more than words of need. Simply praying with thanks will vitally change your prayer life.

So… how will you pray today?

Rev. Kyle Lockhart, Associate Pastor