Teach Us To Pray
24 July 2022
Richardson TX
“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” That is the first line of the first prayer I can remember being taught. The earliest writing was found in a Protestant Monastery from the 1690’s. It’s a rather simple; only 4 lines. I remember when I was a little boy, my mom knelt down beside my bed teaching me the prayer. And we taught the same prayer to our son when he was just small also.
I’m betting that was a similar first prayer for a lot of us. Teaching to pray is something that is just common amongst parents of Faith.
Like any good parent, our Father teaches us to pray just like our moms and dad did. And, that is exactly what Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount. For a very simple prayer in his teaching, it is filled with so much complexity. I know this was in our scriptures sent out earlier, but it really deserves a very close look because every sentence can be the basis for a sermon in of itself.
1 Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
This opening is setting the tone for our petition to the Lord. We first acknowledge that God is our Father. He is our creator and without him, we would have never existed. And, when we say his name, we must say it in reverence. “Hallowed be thy name”. He is holy. He is set apart. It is reiterated in Revelations 4 where it tells us that around the Throne in Heaven, angles sing non-stop ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” And in a subsequent verse it reminds us God made all when tells of the 24 Elders who say:
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
So yes, setting the tone is important. We do not approach like the entitled child yelling “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” We approach with reverence.
The next line in the prayer is:
Thy Kingdome come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
When we look at this line, we are asking for God’s will to be done. It is God’s plan we should be asking for. He is the ultimate wisdom, and with His will, we are surely to be on the best path. If we truly understand this line, the we should understand that sometimes the answer to our prayer is “no”. Think of how may times in the past you prayed for something and then when looking back, realized it wasn’t what you ever wanted in the first place.
Did you ever watch the move Bruce Almighty? In the movie Bruce, Jim Carrey, thinks he can do better than God, so God lets him give it a try. When Bruce decides that every prayer should be answered with “yes” the results were disastrous. Everyone won the lottery, and it was split thousands of times so nobody really won anything.
Someone lost 45 pounds on the Krispy Cream diet. And then riots ensued. Ok, maybe the donut diet would be cool…
Sometimes God needs to say “no” or “not yet”. What if answering your prayer is at the expense of another. If you got the promotion, somebody lost out. If you won the lottery, would you ever have learned from the struggle? I don’t know why some prayers, such as healings don’t get the answer we want, but I have faith that God knows what is in our best interest.
Next in the prayer we say “Give us this day our daily bread”.
We ask God to provide our sustenance. In verse 26 of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says
26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
How many of us really have the faith to fully fall back. How many of us have been spending the last few decades saving in our 401’s, building equity in our houses, all while worrying “will this be enough?” Do we truly have the faith to not worry? To know that God will take care of us? To know that with faith he will “give us our daily bread”. And that to those who were given in abundance, we are expected to be the answer to another’s pray by sharing the wealth.
Now we come to what I think is the hardest part:
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.”
The reason I say this is the hardest because how many of us have a grudge. How many of us are holding pain for something someone has done to us? I once heard a lesson where the lecturer was saying that if we say we have forgiven but we hold anger, we are feeling like justice has still not been served. We still want them to atone for the pain they made us feel. If we are still feeling any of these feelings, then we haven’t forgiven. And if we haven’t forgiven, what’s going to happen when we stand before God, knowing that we have had a life of sin that deserves condemnation, and we are asking for his forgiveness?
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
King James says “lead us not”, other ancient texts say “let us not be led”. But the translation can also say “test”, not “temptation”. But all in all, we are asking God to remove us from evil. To keep us safe from those who seek to destroy our soul.
Lastly, the prayer is finished with “Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory for ever and ever”.
Some scholars have argued that this was not in 2nd century text but found in 4th century texts. It is found in other writings of the 2nd century and it’s debated if it were originally there. But what is true is that just like the opening line separating and elevating God, we finish the prayer again reminding ourselves that God is the creator of the universe, and is the beginning and eternal.
For just 55 words, give or take, depending on the translation, this really says a lot. But also, it’s is really a framework for all of our prayers. Starting with reverence, asking for God’s intervention, coming in humility and repentance, and then closing with reverence.
Why pray? I’ve often had conversations with non-believers who would ask that very question. There was a co-worker who would sit in the labs I worked and make statements like why would we waste time talking to an imaginary friend? When we would testify of answered prayers, he would scoff in disbelief saying nobody gets prayers answered. And that’s an argument I heard from multiple non-believers; “well I prayed once and nothing happened”.
I always liked to answer them back with the analogy of exercise; “well I worked out once and I didn’t get big muscles. I only got sore. Why should I ever work out? It must be good genetics, or just dumb luck that some people have muscles and I don’t. Why would anyone believe in exercise? I don't waste my money on gym memberships!"
You can’t just pray once in your life and expect God to just give it to you. It doesn’t work that way. I know there are testimonies, like John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, who called out to God in desperation, but promised to change his life if God saved him.
I was challenged by someone once when discussion this topic, and they said they didn’t believe prayer worked because God never answered their prayers. Knowing the John Newton testimony, I asked them that if they prayed for healing and God granted it, would they change their life and worship Him? They answered “no, because why didn’t he heal me a long time ago”.
For the ones who rarely pray, I imagine it would be like a relative that only shows up at your door once every couple years when they want something. They ignore you for years, talked badly about you to their friends. Or maybe they just didn’t know you at all. They only show up at your house because someone said you were nice and could give them things so they come to get what they want, and never come back. If you told them that they just need to get to know you first, they’ll begin telling everyone what a sham you are. You aren’t really nice! See, they were in need and you didn’t come to their aid.
We just don’t call someone we’ve never met and just ask for things. We don’t treat friends like that either. We have relations that we’ve built up. And when we really know our friends, we understand when there are times that our friends need to tell us “no”
And, just praying over and over isn’t going to make God hear us either. Jesus told us in Matthew 7:
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
It doesn’t work when our kids ask for the same thing over and over. Why would it work with our heavenly Father? Jesus said God already knows our intentions even before we pray.
And we all know that our prayers are to be in secret, not grandiose for all to see. If out loud for all the hear, the reward for the loud prayer was that everyone got to see you.
And what about the Janice Joplin prayer. We’ve all sung it! :
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz! My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
And then she asks for a colored TV, a night on the town, and a round of drinks. (Can you even buy a black & white TV anymore?)
Do we really have to ask why praying for frivolities is wrong?
James 4:3 says:
{4:3} Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume [it] upon your lusts.
Finally, what is our prayer to God? I guess fundamentally, it is a conversation. And a conversation by definition is a 2 way communication.
There are so many times I’ve gone to the Lord in prayer because of a problem and come to the answer by talking it out. Sometimes when we ask for direction we hear an answer. We know the answer didn’t come from our own internal dialog, and provided the guidance we needed.
Sometimes going to the Lord in prayer, I really just needed to state the whole problem and end up finding the answer. At work we call it the 5 whys. For those of you that have never used the 5 whys, when you’re analyzing the cause for a failure, you ask why, get that answer, then ask why that didn’t work end get the next layer of answer. It’s peeling back the onion until you get to the middle.
We had a bad argument.
• Why did we argue? Because we didn’t talk about such & such
• Why didn’t we talk? Because we just read from our phones
• Why did we read from phones instead of talking? Because we were tired
• Why were we tired? Because we stayed up reading our phones the night before
• Why did we stay up? No reason: answer – shut the phone off and talk to the person we are with instead of texting the people we are not with
Because we trust our Lord, we admit the causes of the problem that we won’t Nobody even allow ourselves to say out lever likes saying out loud that we were wrong. Sometimes we don’t even want to admit to ourselves what we did. But with faith and prayer, our talking with God brings us to the answer.
Others seek answers in all the wrong places. It’s always amazing if you’ve ever been on the website Quora. People post questions and wait for others to answer. Some people post very personal questions, but are those answers really anything you can trust? How do you know a person is an expert? Unless you’re asking advice on how to fix or find something minor, it’s probably best to go to an expert. How do you know the “doctor” on Quora actually went to school? Because the say so? They identify as a doctor? How do you know it’s not a troll out to hurt people for their own amusement?
But, when we pray, how do we know answers are from God? My wife had met plenty of patients who said God told them harm themselves or harm others. The test is easy. God builds you up. God tells you that you are loved. God tells you that you are worthy. God tells you he created you for a good purpose. Anything other than that is not God talking to you.
Pray continuously. Pray with faith. Like going to the gym, you can’t pray once a year and expect an outcome. Pray to build and strengthen your relationship with God. Like a relationship, you can’t have a one-way conversation once a year and expect a friendship. Pray in secret. Your reward is your relationship with God, not being seen and marveled at while praying to God.
Mark 11:24 says: Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Amen!
