In the life of a Christian, a few main activities are generally thought of as necessary for spiritual health: reading your Bible, fellowship with other believers, and prayer. Reading your Bible is a key measure in learning the heart and character of God and how we are to interact and respond to Him. Fellowship with other believers gives us accountability and encouragement in our walk with Christ. Prayer at the most basic level is communication with God. It is this last spiritual "discipline" I would like to engage in discussion about for this blog.
So often prayer becomes ritual or a list of "God do this" and "God fix that". In regards to ritual prayer, this is clearly missing the point of prayer. Prayer is both commanded and explempified in Scripture. Jesus Himself prayed to God on several occasions. Many of these moments He would escape the crowds that followed Him to hear His teaching and pray in private to the Father for renewed spiritual strength. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He both expressed His personal anguish in regards to His impending crucifixion as well as prayed for all who would be saved as a result of this sacrifice that they would be unified as Jesus and the Father were unified. Here we see Christ giving us an example of what to pray and how to pray: we should pray for spiritual strength and renewal and we should pray for unity among believers. We should pray with sincerity and honesty. God wants to hear what's on our hearts and minds. Prayer is a conversation with the Almighty after all.
We also see Christ praying with His disciples at the Last Supper. Here Christ is specifically teaching them how to pray. The Lord's Prayer (Our Father who art in Heaven...) is a model of the things we should pray about. It begins by acknowledging God's holy character. We see this model in the psalms where God is praised for who He is. "Your kingdom come, Your will be done..." addresses human response to who God is. Our human response to God should be obedience to His will and commands. The next line ("give us this day our daily bread...") emphasizes a reliance on God for provision. We then reach a point in the prayer where one asks God for forgiveness for sins and the ability to forgive those who have wronged them. The final line of the prayer in many Bibles is not original and was added to the King James translation published in 1611.
In lieu of the opening lines of this prayer ("Our Father"), we have a picture of what prayer really is: it is the communicating of the children of God to their Father. As children we went to our Father when we needed comfort, needed to confess a wrong, or simply needed something. Our heavenly Father desires that as His children we approach Him in the same way.
So in sum, Christ gives us this example of what to pray for: we should pray for spiritual renewal, Christian unity, forgiveness of sins, physical provision, and Christian character (obedience, a forgiving attitude, etc.). In addition, Jesus shows that we should pray with sincerity, reverence, and humility in the light God's holy character.
My midnight moment in regards to the topic of prayer was this: "What is the point of praying for things? Are there really such things as 'answered prayers'? Afterall, there are things God does regardless of our prayers and things God doesn't do even though we do pray. Is there truly a correlation between divine intervention and our prayers?" Too often I believe we pray to God as though He's some cosmic Santa Claus. While we are taught to "present our request to God" and believe He can heal the sick, redeem the lost, and protect, we expect there to be a direct correlation between our prayers and God's actions. I'm not convinced this is so. God is God, He knows best. He is not always going to grant our request if it's not in the best interests of whoever we've been praying for nor is He going to bypass human free will to answer someone's prayer. On the flip side, I don't believe He's not going to do something simply because someone failed to pray about it. God is much bigger than that. So what's the point of praying?
I don't think I have an answer for this. All I know is this: Scripture teaches us to pray. Jesus prayed and taught us how to pray and prayer was a huge aspect of the early church. So, regardless of the outcome of my prayers, I will continue to pray. We ARE told to pray for certain things, but in the midst of our petitions to God we must proceed with humility knowing that God is God. Whatever the outcome of our prayers, we must hold fast to the hope that God is sovereign, just, and gracious regardless of our personal perspective. We are commanded to rely on His knowledge and understanding, not our own. And whatever the consequence, we are commanded to pray...without ceasing.
So often prayer becomes ritual or a list of "God do this" and "God fix that". In regards to ritual prayer, this is clearly missing the point of prayer. Prayer is both commanded and explempified in Scripture. Jesus Himself prayed to God on several occasions. Many of these moments He would escape the crowds that followed Him to hear His teaching and pray in private to the Father for renewed spiritual strength. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He both expressed His personal anguish in regards to His impending crucifixion as well as prayed for all who would be saved as a result of this sacrifice that they would be unified as Jesus and the Father were unified. Here we see Christ giving us an example of what to pray and how to pray: we should pray for spiritual strength and renewal and we should pray for unity among believers. We should pray with sincerity and honesty. God wants to hear what's on our hearts and minds. Prayer is a conversation with the Almighty after all.
We also see Christ praying with His disciples at the Last Supper. Here Christ is specifically teaching them how to pray. The Lord's Prayer (Our Father who art in Heaven...) is a model of the things we should pray about. It begins by acknowledging God's holy character. We see this model in the psalms where God is praised for who He is. "Your kingdom come, Your will be done..." addresses human response to who God is. Our human response to God should be obedience to His will and commands. The next line ("give us this day our daily bread...") emphasizes a reliance on God for provision. We then reach a point in the prayer where one asks God for forgiveness for sins and the ability to forgive those who have wronged them. The final line of the prayer in many Bibles is not original and was added to the King James translation published in 1611.
In lieu of the opening lines of this prayer ("Our Father"), we have a picture of what prayer really is: it is the communicating of the children of God to their Father. As children we went to our Father when we needed comfort, needed to confess a wrong, or simply needed something. Our heavenly Father desires that as His children we approach Him in the same way.
So in sum, Christ gives us this example of what to pray for: we should pray for spiritual renewal, Christian unity, forgiveness of sins, physical provision, and Christian character (obedience, a forgiving attitude, etc.). In addition, Jesus shows that we should pray with sincerity, reverence, and humility in the light God's holy character.
My midnight moment in regards to the topic of prayer was this: "What is the point of praying for things? Are there really such things as 'answered prayers'? Afterall, there are things God does regardless of our prayers and things God doesn't do even though we do pray. Is there truly a correlation between divine intervention and our prayers?" Too often I believe we pray to God as though He's some cosmic Santa Claus. While we are taught to "present our request to God" and believe He can heal the sick, redeem the lost, and protect, we expect there to be a direct correlation between our prayers and God's actions. I'm not convinced this is so. God is God, He knows best. He is not always going to grant our request if it's not in the best interests of whoever we've been praying for nor is He going to bypass human free will to answer someone's prayer. On the flip side, I don't believe He's not going to do something simply because someone failed to pray about it. God is much bigger than that. So what's the point of praying?
I don't think I have an answer for this. All I know is this: Scripture teaches us to pray. Jesus prayed and taught us how to pray and prayer was a huge aspect of the early church. So, regardless of the outcome of my prayers, I will continue to pray. We ARE told to pray for certain things, but in the midst of our petitions to God we must proceed with humility knowing that God is God. Whatever the outcome of our prayers, we must hold fast to the hope that God is sovereign, just, and gracious regardless of our personal perspective. We are commanded to rely on His knowledge and understanding, not our own. And whatever the consequence, we are commanded to pray...without ceasing.
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