Teach Us to Pray

"When you pray, don't be like hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners so that people will see them. I assure you, that's the only reward they'll get. But when you pray, go to your room, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is present in that secret place. Your Father who sees what you do in secret will reward you." Matthew 6:5–6

My journey began with a commitment to Jesus Christ. As a young adult I accepted Christ as the Savior of my soul and the Lord of my life. I asked him to forgive my sins. I confessed that I did believe. I asked the Lord to help me live in a way that pleased him.

About three days after I made that commitment, I heard a still, small voice inside that asked, "If you really believe in me, then why don't you pray?" Prayer was the first step for me after I made that commitment to Christ. I began to pray before I got out of bed each morning. I prayed before I ate breakfast. I prayed as I drove the car. It seemed that an hour would rarely pass without a prayer.

A frequent prayer was, "Oh, Lord, forgive me. I can't believe I just said what I said with you in the room. Help me, Lord, to control my tongue." Another frequent prayer concerned relationships at home and with friends. I was on a journey now with the Lord, and I was suddenly aware that the Lord was always by my side. This awareness constantly highlighted my sin and brought a prayer to my lips, seeking forgiveness and the strength to change.

I wasn't praying so I would be saved. I was praying because I was already saved, and I was seeking an even deeper relationship with my Savior. Prayer has helped me through times when I thought I would burst with happiness, and times when I wondered if I could go on.

* * *

I remember clearly the day my father died. He lay on his death bed in the hospital. Dad knew, Mom knew, the family knew, and the doctors knew that my father would never leave the hospital. The day finally came when Dad was unable to move, smile, or talk. However, he could see, and I could tell by the expression in his eyes that he was aware of me and understood what I was saying.

My mother stepped out of the room for a quick trip to the cafeteria. I knelt by my father's bed and held his hand. Dad and I stared into each other's eyes, and I told him my memories of so many things we had done together. I talked about camping trips, fishing trips, projects we had worked on together when I was growing up, and the way he forgave me when I totaled the family car (twice). I talked about the church building committee we both served on and about how beautiful the worship room would be when the stained glass windows were installed. I told Dad that I loved him. I recited aloud Scriptures that I had memorized, including John 3:16, Romans 8:28, Psalm 23, and John 14.

Holding Dad's hand, looking into his eyes, I prayed out loud:

Dear Jesus, thank you for my daddy. Thank you for making him such a good father. Thank you for his love, forgiveness, and wisdom. Thank you for his baptism and for forgiving his sins. Thank you for making a home for him in heaven. Lord, as Dad lies here with one foot on earth and one foot in heaven, give him such peace inside that you are in control. Guide him on his journey from earth to heaven. Thank you, Jesus, for never leaving my daddy alone. Amen.

With tears in my eyes, I reminded my father not to be afraid. I told him that we would be okay. I told him that surely his mother and father were standing at the gates of heaven, waiting anxiously for him. I even suggested that his childhood pet, a little Boston terrier, surely must be standing by their side. I said, "I love you, Dad." My mother returned to the room, kissed him, held his hand, and said, "I love you."

Dad knew we were both there. It wasn't long before his breathing began to slow down. Ten, then seven, then five breaths a minute. Then three breaths, and then he was still.

How different the day of my father's death would have been if I did not believe in prayer. Do you have a prayer life that gives you strength in tough times? A pastor once put it this way: "God offers us an ocean, and we choose a puddle instead."

God invites you and me to go deep. God offers to give us the depth of his presence in our lives, the depth of a life filled with joy, and the depth of power and strength in the midst of adversity. Jesus knew those depths. He lived in an ocean of constant communion with God.

Most of us choose not to go deep but to live in the shallow end of life. We choose the puddle instead of the ocean.

Now it's confession time: Some pastors say they pray two hours every day. I cannot imagine doing that. I want to tell them, "Get busy! Stop goofing off!" I confess that I don't have any slacks that are worn out at the knees from prayer.

My prayer life consists of about fifteen minutes each day. As I drive to work in the morning, I pray that God will help me use my time wisely. When I am responding to a telephone call or standing by a hospital bed, I pray that God will give me the right words to say. Before I go to sleep at night, I review in my mind the prayer cards from last Sunday's offering plate, along with the personal and private concerns I have heard, and I lift those concerns up to God. In all, it's perhaps fifteen minutes a day.

But there are times, however, when I step out of the puddle and into the ocean. Sometimes in the evening, around nine o'clock after my last appointment has ended, I walk into the darkened sanctuary. The only illumination in the room is from the cross on the altar, reflecting the golden lights from the parking lot, and the faint glow of the stained glass windows. I kneel by the altar or sit in the front row. I often find my eyes are filled with tears. Some of the tears are for my own sin and shortcomings. Some of the tears come when I read the prayer cards from Sunday morning, where members have poured out their hearts. In the midst of my tears I sense that God is crying too—that God hears these prayers for broken marriages, broken hopes, broken bodies, and broken dreams. There in the night I'm in the ocean, surrounded by the presence of God.

I have an invitation for you. Move from the puddle to the ocean. Allow God to hold you, and mold you, and empower you.

How might your prayer life move from the puddle to the ocean?

Reading the Bible Daily

You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don't do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don't listen and then forget, but they...