“Lord, Teach Us To Pray” (Part 2)
Prayer is something that may be taught. Jesus taught his disciples to pray. The disciples then passed along his teaching to others. We must realize that the next generation will pray as we have taught them. We need to be serious about prayer. There are prayers in the Bible that are available for our study and contemplation. We must examine these prayers, analyze them, and seek to improve both our private and public prayers. Jacob’s prayer in Genesis 32:9-12 is a great prayer of humility and serves as a wonderful example for a private prayer of supplication on behalf of one’s family. Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 10:4-19 is a wonderfully composed prayer of intercession on behalf of God’s people. It was a prayer intended for public display. Unlike the mantras of eastern philosophies, biblical prayer is verbal, expresses a personal relationship to the Divine, and must be taken seriously as a avenue of communication and worship with God, Almighty. “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Prayer is an act that moves us out of the physical and into the spiritual. Christian prayer focuses upon God the Father. Jesus taught us to say, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.” Prayer time ought to be a time of reverence, somber reflection, and holy gratitude. In the moment of prayer, we ought to exorcise all things common and profane that we might honor the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2). There are many common concerns that plague our thoughts on a more or less constant basis. Removing our minds from such temporal concerns brings us to a higher plane where we leave behind the temporal, carnal, and feeble to engage the eternal, spiritual, and powerful. In the final equation, prayer is an act of faith. “Lord, teach us to pray.”
God bless you, and I love you.
Kevin Cauley