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How to Pray
by Walter W. Harms, Austin, TX
Scripture: Luke 11:1 - 13
How do your pray? Who taught you to pray? Maybe no one ever taught
you how to pray and what it is all about. Do you pray a lot? A little?
Too little? Think you ought to pray more? I am here on this last
Sunday I am leading you in worship to give you a guilty conscience for
not praying enough! You can believe that if you want to.
Perhaps a more important question is: why pray at all? If God is in
charge and he loves you and accepts you (I hope you have heard that
enough from me), then why pray? Or perhaps you may believe that while
the saying goes, "prayer changes everything," in reality, prayer
changes nothing. Life, well, it just happens and so what is the
meaning of prayer if that is the case? Jesus has some interesting
points to make with you are persistent prayer in the Gospel for today.
Now both you and the disciples of Jesus way back then had heard more
than their share of public prayers. They had been to the synagogue and
to the temple in Jerusalem and heard many prayers. I am certain that
in their homes they had prayers spoken both in the morning and in the
evening. Yet now they came to Jesus and asked him to teach them to
pray, as John the Baptizer had taught his disciples to pray. So they
knew about prayer and praying. John the Baptizer must have taught his
disciples a special way to pray. Too bad, we have not a clue how he
taught them or the contents of his prayers.
But let's not rush things too much. Let's try to understand why we are
to pray and perhaps a little bit of what prayer is all about to begin
with. Then I hope you will understand the prayer Jesus taught to his
disciples a little better. Oh, yes, and don't get too disturbed that
the Lord's Prayer in Luke is a little different than in the other
Gospels. Luke and none of the other disciples include all that Jesus
said. They only included what they thought, as God the Spirit lead
them, to write what was important to their view of Jesus.
If you are a Christian, then you probably have been baptized. Being
baptized puts you into the family of God. That's where you are with
all those who have faith in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It's a
huge family, a growing family. I heard last week that 65,000 new
members come into our family every week, most of them in Africa.
Now in every family, there is the head of the family. Even if the male
head is gone, there is a head of the family. In most families the head
is the Father. So in the family of God, we, and the "we" is important,
we have our heavenly Father.
Now if you grew up in a family without the presence of a father, or if
your father, sad to say, ignored you or hurt you, calling God "our
Father" can be somewhat problematic. We missed something not having a
father, but just what we missed, we are not sure. We may have
unresolved questions about life and our place in it because a father
never confirmed our importance. In fact, his absence may have
unconsciously confirmed our value as being low. Why would a father
desert his child, unless the child was "defective?" Lurking in back o
our minds may be the notion: God is going to leave me some day because
I am not good enough for him.
We cannot resolve all that. Most of us would probably say we did not
have a "perfect" father. I know I would not say that. But in the
family with a father, we have protection, care, love and so much more.
You who are parents know what goes into parenting and it is much more
than a roof over the head, clothes on the back, and food on the table.
And children know where all the goodies in life come from. And they
ask their father. He is the one who can give them anything and
everything they want. No need to do anything but ask and the father
comes through. And if he doesn't, well, they still trust and love him.
So it is in the family of God. Our heavenly Father cares for all of us
more abundantly that we can either ask or deserve. He is "our" Father.
He has the whole family of God in mind, always. Isn't that absolutely
magnificent? He protects, provides, looks down the road at what we
might need, keeps harmful persons and events from getting to us, cleans
up our messes, teaches us lessons, helps us so we have a good spirit
about life and what's ahead, cares for the weakest and the strongest in
the family. We are never ignored.
When you pray, when you invoke the deity above all other deities, then
say: "Father."
Then we say, "Help us to honor you as the one who give us all things."
Keep us from thinking we are in charge and we are the ones who provide
everything. Help us to remember that you sent Jesus to let us know how
much you love and care for us. And it doesn't make any difference how
we act as your children, loving or unloving, you always are there for
us. Wow! Father, help us honor you as our Father and the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Jesus said, if we who forget even at the tender age of whatever age
you are, who God is and wish he wasn't around to keep us on the
straight and narrow because the broad and easy road looks so much more
exciting, he still is going to give us good gifts.
Good gifts? I'm a little suspicious. I don't know about that when I
look at what I have received in life. Ever get a gift and you
wondered: Why in the world would someone give me this? You know like a
vacuum cleaner on your birthday. Yet all that comes from God is good
for us his children. And the promise is that God will give us this
special gift of the Holy Spirit! Isn't that exciting!!!! That news
doesn't exactly make you jump up and down, does it?
Well, the Spirit is the one who give you the ability to trust you've
got a real Father in heaven. He helps us trust that in the midst of
things we cannot understand, God is a loving Father to us. The gift of
the Spirit is always to be treasured, for without him, we live in the
arid desert with terrible fires threatening to destroy us. With the
Good News of the Living Water from heaven life means nothing and the
Sacraments become simply stupid repetitions of remembering that someone
long ago got nailed for being a nice guy. Well, so what? Life is
tough and good guys often end up on the short end. That is precisely
what we would think without the Spirit, the gift from our Father to us
his children. So you be in charge of our lives, Father. Your kingdom come.
And we're always worried about whether we're going to have enough. So
don't forget to give us, your forgetful children what we need to live
so that we will remember you and honor you and live the abundant life,
trusting you as our Father.
And we always have this wash out in the road of life that we could
never get around, and all progress in life would be thwarted and we
would have to carry this burden of knowing that despite all your
kindness, we ignore you, forget you, think we know better than you.
Yes, that we are guilty of wanting to be THE BIG ONE in life. We are
always trying to take your place, like a child is told when the daddy
leaves: "Now you be the daddy in the family until I return." That's
what we keep telling ourselves. What a bunch of @$#%X that is. Me be
in charge? I can't even do well with what you have entrusted me, much
less be in charge of the whole matter.
I saw the movie, Bruce Almighty, about a person who gets to be God for
a while. Does he ever screw things up! He hasn't got the foggiest
about what is good for others or for ourselves. And we know better than
our Father?
So, forgive us our sins, and like it or not, we'll forgive everyone,
yes, everyone who is indebted to us.
And if we know a little about ourselves, we would know that all too
often, if it were up to us whether we would take the fruit on the
forbidden tree, or our heavenly Father, we would choose the fruit and
have not a thought about its consequences. So, Father, you like to
test people. You tested Abraham, you even put Jesus to the test, but
please, don't do that to us because we would probably more than likely
fail miserably. Well, you know well enough to make the tests you give
us easy, so we can pass.
Prayer is continuing to ask, to seek, to knock on heaven's door for
whatever you want from God. You will be given; you will find; you will
have doors opening to you.
Why have I the arrogance to say that? Because I know the Father. And
how do I know the Father? Because I know his Son whose coming into this
world, whose participation in our world, whose work in this world,
whose mission to rescue man by his dying in this world, and who will
come back to take us to himself is all a revelation of our Father and
comes from our Father. And he says pray this way. I am going to do
that. I hope you always will, too. Amen.
See Also:
The God Who Delights In Answering Prayer by Rev. Bryn MacPhail Exploring a Life of Prayer by Jane E. Vennard God’s Generous Response to Boldness in Prayer by John MacArthur Sermons and Bible
Commentary/Analysis for the 2nd sunday after Shunoyo
Prayer is an institution of God. Over and over again, the Bible commands us to
pray. And yet, I suspect that many of us, having prayed, have wondered about
whether our prayers will actually change anything. The importance of persistence
in prayer; why some of our prayers may not answered; what should we pray for?
These are some of the topics covered in this article.
Prayer is our response to God's loving call. In this reflection I will invite
you into activities to help you affirm and learn from these experiences of
prayer. We will explore what keeps us from responding when deep in our hearts we
long to be in relationship with God. I will encourage you to try different forms
of prayer to discover which ones fit you best.
But our God is absolutely available, absolutely approachable, gracious,
merciful, compassionate, kind and you can go into His presence boldly and ask
for whatever you want. You can go into His presence any time and not interrupt
Him. In fact, He desires you to do that.
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