When You Pray

When You Pray. Today a friend called with excitement in his voice. “Kevin, I think God granted a miracle. We didn’t know what to do, so we prayed that a hopeless marriage might be spared from the fast-track toward divorce. The divorce papers were already signed and ready to mail in, but God answered our prayer! The husband did something that he never in his life did; he said he was sorry. The wife did something that she vowed never to do again; she believed her husband. That’s a miracle!”

“Amen, brother,” I said, “that is a miracle!”

Prayer, its meaning, and its mechanism within the all-knowledge of our sovereign God, is a mystery. “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Psa. 135:6). Why God, who already knows everything and already does everything he pleases, commands us to pray is complicated, but that God commands us to pray is simple. “Pray then like this” is a straightforward imperative given by Jesus (Matt. 6:9). It is ours to obey even if it is hard to grasp theologically. “When you pray” normalizes the practice of prayer for Jesus’ disciples, yet without enforcing a mode of prayer (Matt. 6:5, 6, 7).

Before and arguably instead of being a means to an end, prayer is, first and foremost, an act of worship. This devotional aspect distances biblical prayer from all other religious rituals involving prayer. Prayer does not seek to gain God’s attention because in Christ we already have God’s attention! Prayer does not seek to butter God up, to grease the skids for the big ask because in Christ we already have God’s unmerited favor. Instead of the common, religious rituals of prayer, Christian prayer is a function of relationship. In prayer, between every “Our Father in heaven” and each “Amen,” we review the basic hierarchy that governs the universe: God is god; we are not. God is able; we are unable. God is generous; we are needy. Prayer, before any word is uttered, is the admission that we are powerless. Yet, sublimely, though we are impotent, we are simultaneously held inside a faith relationship with the Omnipotent Lord who bids us to call upon his name, using his name, for his name’s sake.

It was entirely appropriate and within the scope of prayer that the disciples asked Jesus—which was itself a prayer whether they perceived its nuance or not—“Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1a). Of course, the disciples were conceptually off because the thrust of their request was comparative in nature instead of relational: “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples to pray” (Luke 11:1). Wrongly but often repeated, a certain prestige is conveyed to the watching world through our forms of prayer. They wanted to be noticed through their prayers as Jesus’ disciples the way that John’s disciples were noticed by the way that they prayed. But Jesus did not rebuke them of their starting place at prayer. Jesus meets us where we are to lead us to where he wants us to be with prayer. Essentially, the best way to begin praying is to pray about prayer. “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).