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Luke 11:1 tells us that, "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to him, 'Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.'"
I have found that for many of us, myself included, almost all of our prayers begin by rushing into a series of requests in which we pour out to God our problems, our needs, our irritations. This only tends to reinforce the focus of our attention on what is troubling us and our inability to remedy it.
Therein lies the problem of why we, at times, are more depressed and frustrated after we pray than before. When we have finished our prayers, we can scarcely bring ourselves to believe that our feeble words have been heard, or made a difference in the things concerning which we have been praying about. Yes, we have said our prayers, but have we really prayed?
In Luke 11, Jesus gave what is called the Lord's Prayer in response to the disciple's request in (v. 1), "Lord, teach us to pray." The disciples seem to have waited a long time to ask Jesus to teach them to pray. They had been with Him for months, perhaps even years by this point. They have watched Him pray in every circumstance of life. They had seen Him taking time to be alone to pray. They understood that Jesus lived a life guided and empowered by prayer. Perhaps as they watched Him pray it caused them to realize how very little they truly knew about prayer. Whatever the case, the disciples turn to Jesus and ask, "Lord teach us to pray?"
Jesus' response is what many refer to as the Lord's Prayer. It is the model prayer, an answer to the question that the disciples requested, "Lord teach us to pray." The Lord's Prayer is found in John 17, where he prays for Himself, His disciples and for all who would become believers.
Jesus' response to His disciples gives us an outline as to what should be included in our prayers, or how to pray. So, He said to them, "'Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us and lead us not into temptation.'"
Obviously, the Model Prayer was not given to just be recited as a ritual. It is given to us as the Lord's blueprint for prayer that is acceptable to God. There is something tremendously important about the way Jesus answered the disciples' question. "Lord, teach us to pray." In other words, Pray like this. The Lord's answer to His disciples was to show the disciples how to pray, after all that is what they asked. It is also a model for us when approaching the King of the universe. We must recognize that there is a difference between repeating the model prayer and praying effectively.
Our prayers are effective when we recognize who we are praying to, rather than just repeating the words found in Jesus' response to His disciples. The Lord wants to hear what's in our heart, how we really feel. Effective prayer is not measured by how loud you pray, or how long you pray, or even if you say the words of the Lord's Model Prayer again and again in a repetitious fashion. Your prayer life will be effective if you are sincere in your approach and if you ask for the right things.
Looking closely at Jesus' answer to His disciples that day shows us a basic blueprint of how our prayers should be constructed. He was telling us to make the presence of God real in our hearts. When you pray "hallowed be thy name," you are placing God on the throne of your heart. It is about putting God on the throne of our lives on earth, as He sits upon His throne in heaven. The phrase, "your Kingdom come" recognizes that God's Kingdom was not in existence at that time. The tense of the verb "come" refers to a decisive time in the future when the kingdom of God on earth (the church) will come.
It is unfortunately true that untold millions of individuals have repeated the words "your will be done" down through the centuries without the faintest notion of what God's will is. Perhaps even more alarming is that even more people have repeated these words without any intention of ever seeing to it that the Father's will is done in their lives. The next phrase, "give us our daily bread" is another phrase that is said repeatedly. It is my experience that when you awoke this morning, none of you had even the slightest doubt that you would be able to eat today. Most of the major concerns for the average American is not what will we eat today. We are told to pray "give us day by day our daily bread," to remind us of our absolute dependence on God for everything.
This next request is not only an explicit prayer for forgiveness, "forgive us our sins," but also for a forgiving spirit, "for we also forgive everyone who has sinned against us." In Jesus' model prayer He teaches us, after we have asked the Father for provision, now we ask for pardon. "Forgive" follows "give." After asking God to "forgive us our sins," the next request is a plea to be delivered from falling into new sins. This petition in the prayer is primarily for protection. Then when we use the phrase "deliver us from the evil one" we are admitting that this life is a struggle with an enemy that opposes us. Because we do not know what dangers we will face each new day, we need God's protection to cover us. When you pray "deliver us from the evil one" you are turning your protection over to God.
Our real need today is to focus on what it means to talk to the God of the universe as our Father. Then pray about His priorities, His purposes, asking for His provision, His protection and His pardon, so then we can forgive others.
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Finding Faith is written and compiled by area pastors. This week's column comes from Pastor Mark Riley, minister of Flemington First Church of Christ.