Still Learning to Pray
Luke 11:1-4
One night when my granddaughter, Autumn, stayed overnight with me, she and I were on our knees, praying beside my bed. The lights were low. All of a sudden, a voice came from my iphone which was on the night-stand. We were startled! To make a long story short, Siri, the iphone voice, had picked up the word “prayer” as we prayed, and had begun to read a paragraph from a website about prayer!
We grabbed the phone and read the rest ourselves! Here, amazingly, is what the unexpected voice was saying:
“The great people of the earth today are the people who pray. I do not mean those who talk about prayer; nor those who can explain prayer; but I mean those people who take time and pray. They have not time. It must be taken from something else. This something else is very important—very important and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer.” S.D. Gorgon
We were quietly stunned! I’m still not exactly sure how that all happened, but we sensed that it was no coincidence. It was something that we will not forget!
The enemy does not want us to pray! Remember that old Stuart Hamblen song (which I don’t particularly like) that says, “Mommy told me something a little girl should know, and it’s all about the devil and I’ve learned to hate him so…If I forget to say my prayers the Devil jumps with glee But he feels so awful, awful, when he sees me on my knees.”
A somewhat shallow song but in it, a great truth embedded! How the enemy fights me in the matter of a time alone with the Lord, on my knees, reading and praying! I know… and he knows…that the people of power are the people who pray!
Like Daniel. Like Elisha. Like Paul. Like Moses. Like Hannah. Like Jonah. Like Hezekiah. Like Jesus.
One can never say, "I know all there is to know about praying." That is not the goal! The goal is to pray. If there is anything that the enemy fights us on, it's our prayer life! That's because when we pray, God hears us and immediately starts the ball rolling.
How about "praying without ceasing?" In our day and age it is practically impossible! The radio is on in the car, we go to work where our job is to answer the phone, the TV is on much of the time at home, we go see this movie or that, we have birthday parties for the kids...and we sleep! So much there is to divert our attention from praying!
Many of the elderly have done very little praying in their lifetime! Church has been a Sunday only thing. During the week, there is little or no communication with the Lord. Honestly...in some churches there is no teaching on prayer and no urging to do so. It is quite surprising!
So when we start to talk about prayer and exhorting them to pray when they awaken, when they eat, when they go to bed and when they are in trouble, many folk just sit and stare back at us. We give out Bible verse cards that remind them to pray; that helps a little. We give them Bible verse cards with prayers actually written out. That also helps.
It has been like pulling teeth to coax them into praying aloud in a small group. They say that their prayer life is very personal and they will not pray out loud. Others are very shy. Yet, praying together is a huge part of the Christian life. We work on this subject very often.
Do you have stories to tell about how you teach on the subject of prayer with your people? Let us know. See the Input Page!
Isn't it amazing that God, the Creator of heaven and earth desires for us to take time to pray to Him?