He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples." Luke 11:1
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he disciples had been out there preaching and healing the sick.
They were amazed at things that
were happening.
"Lord, even the demons are
subject to us in your name!"
But when they saw Jesus a few yards away from them praying, they knew that something was going on between him and heaven which they had never tasted. When Jesus finished praying, it was obvious that he had been in another world. He was refreshed. He was new.
Every unusual manifestation of heaven that came through Jesus' ministry was either preceded or attended by Jesus praying.
Now when the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been
baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit
descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove, and a voice came from heaven,
"Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased." Luke 3:21-22
Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter
and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his
countenance was altered, and his raiment became dazzling white. And behold, two men talked with him, Moses
and Elijah, who
appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was to accomplish at
Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go
before him to the other side, to
And he came out, and went, as was his custom, to the
Jesus was a man. He was not some
kind of superhuman creature. Even though
he was God the Son, he had emptied himself of his divine prerogatives and
become truly human. But when this man
prayed, heaven came right down into him.
Prayer wasn't a ritual with Jesus, it was what kept him alive, like
breathing. It was what enabled him to
travel through this sin-perverted atmosphere and not become corrupted. It was his one comfort in a world that
despised him.
When Jesus finished feeding the five thousand, he did not sit down and have a relaxing chat with his disciples. He got alone with the Father. The day of miracles had drained him, and nobody on this earth could renew him — only the Father.
That evening in
The disciples saw all this and knew that if they were going to truly be pupils in Jesus' kingdom school, his kind of prayer would have to become part of their lives too. John the Baptist's disciples were known to be men of prayer. But by comparison, Jesus' disciples felt inadequate. They felt like many of us feel. We've been following Jesus. We've seen signs of the kingdom. We've been telling others about the kingdom. Yet our prayers are lacking. They are weak, fitful, vague, often half-hearted.
When we go into our room and shut the door to pray —
Are we really reaching heaven?
Is heaven coming down to us?
Do we step forth renewed by God?
How many times we have made resolutions. "It's going to be different from now on." "I'm going to get down to it." "I resolve to be consistent." We've read books about prayer. We've tried prayer techniques. We've pumped ourselves up, and squashed ourselves down. Still we stagger and stumble.
As long as we stumble at prayer, our ministries are bound to stumble as well. We'll have a good day followed by ten bad days. Moments of illumination followed by days of spiritual "madness and blindness and astonishment of heart."
We cannot have the consistent, steady, pounding stamina of heaven that keeps us laboring in season and out of season, through famine and plenty, war and peace, until we have made God our daily sanctuary, as our Lord made the Father his daily sanctuary. Until heaven is the starting point of every day we live, the root of every thought, the goal of all our desiring.
And this will not happen until we begin learning to pray. Learning
to pray. No one this side of heaven is an expert at prayer. We are, at best, continually learning. According to Luke, Jesus did not start teaching his disciples to pray until they asked him. It would have been useless to try to teach they to pray until they wanted to learn.
If we are satisfied with our prayer life, there is little we can learn about prayer. We are not ready to learn until we begin to be dissatisfied, until we thirst for help. When we reach that point, here are three facts to help us along the way:
We can read wonderful books on prayer. But no book can teach us to pray. We can listen to inspiring sermons about prayer. But no sermon can teach us to pray. Jesus is the one to teach us, even as he taught his first disciples.
So we confess our ignorance, delete our preconceived convictions about prayer, and call on the Lord himself. "Lord, teach us to pray." We can be certain of his help, as we cooperate.
When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he did not pull out a blackboard and draw diagrams, and load them down with theory. He said, "When you pray say, ‘Our Father who art in heaven….'"
Jesus encouraged them to start right off praying, gave them words that would help them. Those words of Jesus in the Lord's Prayer are the starting point for us as well. We take those words a phrase at a time, and let him show us what they mean. We lift up our hearts and pray the words, trusting that our Teacher will come to our aid as we pray.
Jesus won't do our praying for us. We have to do it. And as we do, he helps us. Nor will the Master rearrange our schedules for us to make the time for prayer. We have to make the time. We do what is within our power, then he comes to us to lift us into things that are beyond our power.
Likewise Jesus won't do our thinking for us. We have to think. We have to concentrate our minds on God. When our minds wander, as they will, it's up to us to bring them back into focus and keep going.
Most of us will find it helpful to actually speak words. Saying words helps us come out of the fuzzy clouds into this world where we live, and where God is present in ways beyond our comprehension.
And we need to learn to listen. Elijah listened for God in the wind, but God was not in the wind. An earthquake followed, and Elijah listened for God. But God was not in the earthquake. Then came a raging fire. Again Elijah listened and heard nothing from God. Finally, there came "the voice of a gentle stillness." Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, because he recognized the voice of God coming to him in the very silence which followed all the noise.
To sit still or stand still, or to kneel in silence is not easy for most of us. We feel guilty about "wasting time" doing nothing, when there's so much to be done. But if we keep at it, with our hearts open toward heaven, we will receive help in whatever form God chooses to give it. We will receive help in the silence that descends on us from heaven as we focus our hearts on the Father. We will be sustained by the Lord's presence, even when we feel nothing. The more we persevere at prayer, the more clearly we will know that changes are taking place within us and around us — long before we see them.
3. Jesus will teach us to pray by sending the Holy Spirit into our lives in fresh measure.
The climax of Jesus' answer to his disciples, when they asked him to teach them to pray was:
If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how
much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. Luke 11:13
It is through the Spirit that Jesus teaches us to pray. He is the one who teaches us from within to cry, "Abba! Father!" He intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. He enters our prayers and lifts them with a mighty wind from heaven.
So we ask the Father to pour his Spirit into us afresh every time we begin to pray. We trust the Spirit to help us in our weakness, confessing that, without his help we are at a loss, when it comes to prayer. And as we continue praying, weak and fumbling as our attempts may be, the Lord Jesus brings us, as he brought his first disciples, to the place where prayer becomes our second nature, our primary labor in the kingdom, our doorway to the life of God in Jesus Christ.