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went toa prívate room. But the disci–
ples knew he regularly prayed to
God in heaven. T hey also knew John
the Baptist had taught h is disciples
to pray. But the disciples didn' t real–
ly know how to pray themselves.
Christ had told them about prayer
on severa! occasions. He said in Mat–
thew 6:7 , "But when you pray, do
not use vain repetitions as the hea–
then do. For they think that t hey will
be heard for their many words"
(RAV). The easy way is to have a
memori zed prayer to say over and
over. But that is not how to pray.
Another t ime Christ had talked
with them about public religious dis–
plays. Sorne religious Jeaders in
Jesus' day hada special vani ty. They
would go to the temple with great
pomp and ce_remony. Sorne wou ld
have a trumpet bearer sound the
horn, and when everyone turned to
see, they would cast their offerings
into the temple treasury. Or they
would pray piously. These were the
same ones who loved to have the
chief seats in the synagogue.
You know what Jesus called this
kind of pretentious worship?
Hypocrisy!
Concerning prayer, Christ said
to his disciples, "When you pray,
go into your room, close t he door
and pray to your Father, who is
unseen" (Matt. 6:6,
N TV).
Personal prayer is not conducted
on main street out in the open. It is
your personal and private time with
God who is your spiritual Father.
Of cou rse, it is entirely appropriate
to have occasional pu bl ic prayer
such as asking God's blessing on a
mea!, to open a meeting or impor–
tant event and the like.
But we are talking about the
t ime you spend with God in person–
al prayer.
Let's go back to the example of
Christ's disciples. They had ob–
served the many times Christ went
out alone to pray. They knew he
instructed t hem not to pray like so–
called religious people did. Not to
use vai n repetitions. But they just
did not know how to pray privately.
T hey fi nally got the courage to
ask him. Christ had been away
praying. When he returned one of
them said, "Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught his d isciples"
(Luke 11:1).
J esus gladly instructed t hem.
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August 1983
But he didn't tell them what a Iot
of people think. The passage in
Luke 11:2-4 shows
how to pray.
Many today th ink Jesus told them
what to say.
That is, they think
that J esus' words are what we are
to pray over and over. But remem–
ber Christ said, "Don't use vain
repetition." The so-called Lord's
Prayer is not a memorized ditty to
be repeated thousands of times- it
is a guide to prayer.
Perhaps the best way to phrase
the meaning behind this prayer is
·to call it an
OUTLINE
of what to
pray about.
For many that's the biggest
problem of alt- what to pray
about. Once we acknowledge the
The easy way
is to have a memorized
prayer to say over
and over. But that is not
how to pray.
need to pray, and to pray every day,
we face the dilemma of what to
pray about. Jt shou ldn't be embar–
rassing to admit you don't know
how. Even the apostles had to be
taught to pray.
If
you find yourself
at that point, you have good compa–
ny. We all have been there.
Once you have decided to learn
to pray, you need to have a place to
pray. Probably the best place for
most people is a prívate room or
closet at home. Perhaps the bed–
room. Or if you have a basement, a
quiet prívate place there could be
set aside as a prayer area. You
might have to find your own special
place. T he main thing is to have a
place where you will not be inter–
rupted. And a place you can call
your own for the time you pray.
What t o Pray About
Christ gave usan outline-a gener–
al framework for prayer.
If
you
only recite the outline, you will be
finished praying in a little over 20
seconds. T hat could hardly be con–
sidered meaningful prívate prayer.
But if you use the words of Jesus
as an outline, you can pray 1
O
min–
utes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes or
more each time you pray.
It
won' t
be vain repetition at all.
Let's take each of the points of
his outline and see just a few t h ings
you can pray about.
1 have talked to a lot of people
about prayer. Many have told me
how much more personal God has
become once they really learned
how to pray.
Most of us don't have any problem
talking with people. We can talk
with our parents, a good friend,
people at work, relatives and neigh–
bors. Wby should it be so hard to
talk to God? At fi rst it may not be
easy. After all, people are right there
with us. They talk back. But God
may seem, especially at first, far
away. He is in heaven. We may feel
as if we don't know where that is.
Prayer is our opportunity to talk
with t he Father in heaven.
You don 't need to talk to God in
archaic grammatical expressions. lt
isn't more rel igious to say, "Lord,
we thank t hee for thy divine provi–
dence," than it is to simply say,
"Father, thank you for your bless–
ings in my life."
Your conversation with God
should be normal and natural- not
stilted and falsely religious sound–
ing.
So once you acknowledge God as
Father, Jesus said to give honor and
praise to him. If you are happily
married, you have terms of endear–
ment you use to express your feel–
ings to your mate. You may call your
spouse "sweetheart," or "darling,"
or "honey," or "dear," or something
special that has meaning to you.
But you would never use such
words or phrases to describe your
relationship and feel ing for God.
Words like
awesome, omnipotent ,
majestic
and
glorious
come to
mind.
In other words, as you start pray–
ing, you need to get your mind on
just how great and powerful God is.
H e is in heaven- a great and
powerful spirit being. Each time
you pray you can think of different
ways to express both the persona]
and spiritual relationship you have
with God. You can actually spend
severa! minutes communicating
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