This is one of the spiritual disciplines that most Christians struggle with irrespective of their denominations. Yet it is one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines and one that the Lord expects his followers to continue to do. I wonder why this is a difficult discipline to do for Christians considering that prayer is not only common to them and that it existed before Christianity? For us Christians, prayer is the communication mechanism we use to talk to God and receive messages from Him. It is the vehicle we use to make our requests known to God and it is the channel we use to ask God to let His kingdom come among other things. The God of the bible is a relational God and He wants and expects us to be constantly communicating with Him. In fact, the bible clearly asks us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) which means we have to be in constant communion with our Maker. I personally love prayer but it is nevertheless a discipline I too find challenging. In fact, I do not feel adequate to write on prayer because I suck at it and I constantly see how I fall short but this is the topic that kept coming again and again in my bible reading this week so here we are. I hope to be able through this post to stir your heart to pray and pray more regardless of how you feel or what you think and to make it a habitual practice if you have not already. I will be looking at prayer in the bible, specifically examples of men and women whose lives were shaped by it.
In the bible, the first instance of prayer or the idea of it we have is found in the book of Genesis (shocker) after the fall. At that time, Adam and Eve had lost Abel who was killed by his own brother Cain but God gave them another son that they named Seth. Adam and Eve were still living in the reality of the fall but with the generation of Seth’s the bible tells us that “…at that time, men began to call on the name of the Lord” (Genesis 4:26). I wonder, what was done before that time? Did people not know they could “call on the Lord”? Was it not permitted? Was it their sin and the realization of who God is that discouraged them to call upon Him? Or was it that like in the book of Judges “everyone did what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:125)? It is hard to know but it seems prior to this incident, men did not just communicate with God on their own, God would often be the one initiating the conversation (see Genesis 4). Assessing the situation and asking myself these questions, there are two points that come to mind: 1) prayer is a privilege and 2) it is only used by fallen creatures.
Prayer is a privilege because not everyone is privy to enter into the presence of God, let alone speak to Him! Just as it was and still is with kings, not anyone can meet a king or a president today, you have to be summoned by such high personalities. Before the fall, the relationship that Adam had with God did not necessitate prayer, indeed Adam was already in the presence of God, communing with His Creator. After the fall, Adam realized that he could no longer access God the way he used to in the past. Being separated from God also meant not being able to communicate on a direct level as he used to. Now God had to initiate communication with him, He also had to tell him how to communicate with him. These were new realities Adam had to get accustomed to. This brings me to my second point which is that prayer is only used by fallen creatures. There are no records in the bible of angels praying for example, all references to prayers we have is with people so it can be easily inferred that it is for us sinful creatures. God in His goodness made a way for our relationship with Him to be restored including our communication with Him. He did that through the death and resurrection of His son Jesus on the cross. Indeed, we who still live in the sinful world know we cannot just approach God; for one, we do not see Him physically and two He is Holy and we are not. Thankfully, by dying on the cross on our behalf, Jesus gave us his righteousness and nailed to the cross our sins. So now, for those of us that have repented of our sins and have believed on Jesus, we are credited with his righteousness which makes us holy before God and gives us the green card to enter into His presence as we pray. Not only that, we have the confidence that our prayers are heard. This is huge! One of the beauty of prayer is that it reveals our dependency on God. In the bible, there are a few people who displayed that dependency very well in their prayers but today, I would like to focus on: Hannah, David, Jesus and Paul.
Hannah’s prayer stemmed from her inability and desire to conceive and the constant taunting she faced from her husband’s second wife Peninnah. Hannah had to run to God as her only source because not even her husband could satisfy the longing she had (1 Samuel 1:8). When Hannah finally came to God relinquishing everything, even the very thing she was asking God for, God granted her request. Hannah’s view of God changed, she learned to acknowledge Him as God, Holy and powerful. She understood that His ways are not ours, that He wants us to love Him first and that He is just. Her prayer of thanksgiving after giving birth to her son Samuel and dedicating him to the Lord shows that (see 1 Samuel 2). What I find beautiful in her initial prayer is how she expressed her groaning; to the physical eye it seemed as though Hannah was drunk, she seemed intoxicated while in the presence of God, to the point that Eli, the priest at the time rebuked her for her drunkenness to which she responded “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15). Hannah knew she served a God who could hear, a God who was merciful and she also knew she could come to him in her current state.
Similarly, David was a man of prayer whose dependency on God was seen not just in his prayers but also in the life he lived. In fact, he wrote most of the Psalms we read and sing today. Even though we sing those psalms, they are actual prayers which reflect the expression of David’s heart towards God. In the Psalms, we see David worshipping God, marveling and being in awe at who God is, we see him crying out to God for help, we see him persisting in prayer, we see him asking God for protection, we see him asking God to avenge him, we see him repenting and asking God for forgiveness, etc. The prayers of David were a wide range and speak to most of life’s situations. Those prayers have been so relevant that they are still used today by Christians to pray to their Father. David did not exclude God from any situation he was facing. God was indeed David’s present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) and for him, a day in the God’s court was better than a thousand elsewhere (Psalm 84:10).
In the New Testament, we see the same dependency on God in the life of Jesus. Although he was the son of God, he still prayed. He also modelled a life of prayer to us and taught us how to pray. Indeed, Jesus often withdrew himself to solitary places early in the morning to pray (Luke 5:16). He also prayed when faced with difficult situations such as his journey to the cross while in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:42, Matthew 26:42). He also prayed to give thanks to the Father for food (Luke 9:16) or to give Him thanks for His wisdom (John 11:41). Basically, Jesus used prayer as a means to worship God, make requests to God and be encouraged by God. There was nothing that he did without the Father’s knowledge and consent. Jesus’ dependency on God was so high that he said “…the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing…” (John 5:19). This total dependence on God is what led Jesus to the cross and because of it we have a restored relationship with God.
In addition to Jesus’ prayers, you have Paul’s which not only showed his dependency on God but were a reflection of his changed heart. What I personally like with Paul when it comes to the subject of prayer is the fact that he himself was a praying man. Every letter that Paul wrote contains at least one prayer and it often starts with a prayer of thanksgiving to God for his audience. Moreover, Paul’s prayers for others are focused on their growth in the things of God. He prays that the brethren would be filled with the knowledge of God’s will (Colossians 1:9); he prays that they may be encouraged in heart (Colossians 2:2); he prays that the love of the saints will abound more and more (Philippians 1:9); he prays that the Ephesians will receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation; he prays that God will fill the needs of his hearers according his riches in glory or that they will know the depth and height of the love of God. Paul understood the power of prayer for the Christian and so he practiced it with fervor.
There is much more that can be said on this topic and many other examples can be illustrated but I am afraid that is not what we need to encourage us to pray. I believe, what we need to do is just pray. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we can discipline ourselves to pray. So let me encourage you to just pray. If you don’t know what to pray for, how about praying Paul’ prayers for either yourself, your church, your family, your friends, your coworkers? We do not need more seminars on prayer, we just need to pray. It is a boring discipline at first but the more you do it, the more it becomes rewarding and you actually see God moving because of your prayers. In the book of Ezekiel we see the LORD himself rebuking the people of Judah because He found no one to stand in the gap in prayer (Ezekiel 22:30). If the LORD had found someone that interceded, He would have averted the destruction of the land. God is still looking for men and women that will stand in the gap and pray for more workers to go and share the love of Jesus Christ to those who do not know him. Ask God to give you the strength to pray, make a plan to pray, start small and build up the momentum but by all means pray.
A Word Aptly Spoken 