Learning to Pray

By Rev. Chuck Queen

John Ortburg shares an interesting story about answered prayer. Bob, an insurance agent with no connection to politics, became friends with Doug, a man in Washington D.C who was involved in a ministry that mostly involved people in politics. One day Bob showed up all excited about Jesus’ promise, “ask whatever you will in my name and I will do it.”

“Is that really true?” asked Bob. Doug said, “Well, it’s not a blank check. You have to take it in the context of the teachings of the whole Scripture on prayer. But yes—it really is true. Jesus really does answer prayer.” Bob said, “Great, I think I will pray for Africa.”

Doug suggested he narrow his prayer to one country. So Bob decided to pray for Kenya. Doug challenged Bob that if would pray faithfully for Kenya for six months, and if nothing seemed to happen he would give him $500, on the other hand, if something remarkable did happen, then Bob would have to pay him $500. So Bob began to pray. And for a long time nothing happened.

Then one night Bob was at a dinner in Washington D.C. where the people around the table explained what they did for a living. One woman indicated that she ran an orphanage in Kenya. Bob sprang to life and began to see his money fly away. He asked lots of questions and the woman invited him to fly to Kenya and visit the orphanage. Nothing could have kept him away.

Bob was appalled by the poverty and the lack of basic health care. When he returned to D.C. he could not get the orphanage off his mind. So he started writing to large pharmaceutical companies, describing to them the vast need and he asked them to send their unsold supplies to Kenya. The orphanage received more than a million dollars worth of medical supplies.

The woman called Bob up, “This is amazing! We’ve had the most phenomenal gifts because of the letters you wrote. We would like to fly you back over and have a big party. Will you come?” So Bob went back over to celebrate with them.

While he was there, the president of Kenya came to the party; this was the largest orphanage in the country. The president offered to take Bob on a tour of Nairobi, the capital. In the course of the tour they saw a prison. Bob inquired about the prisoners. They were political prisoners. Bob said to the president, “That’s a bad idea. You should let them out.” When Bob got home he received a call from the State Department of the U.S. government. They wanted to inform him that for years they had been trying to secure the release of these prisoners and all their maneuverings had ended in dead ends. But now they had been released and they were told it was primarily due to . . . Bob. So the government called to say thanks.

Several months later the president of Kenya called Bob. He was going to rearrange his government and select a new cabinet. He wanted to know if Bob would be willing to fly over and pray for him for three days while he worked on his cabinet. So Bob—with no political connections at all—boarded a plane, flew back to Kenya, and prayed for the president as he selected his leaders.

That’s a wonderful story isn’t it? And it raises questions about prayer. One of Jesus’ disciples approaches him with a request: “Teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Jesus responds with a model prayer, a pattern that gets at the heart of true prayer. We commonly call this the Lord’s Prayer. Luke’s version is shorter than Matthew’s; it is likely that Luke’s version is closer to what Jesus said and Matthew has elaborated on it.

The first two lines orient the prayer. The context for prayer is a loving, caring relationship with God comparable to a relationship between a loving parent and a son or daughter. Prayer begins with a desire that all people experience this relationship. “Hallowed be your name” is a request that God’s name and all that his name means and represents as the Loving, Compassionate God, be acknowledged and regarded as such by all people.

The next petition is the central focus of prayer—the kingdom of God, or as I like to say, God’s new world. “Your kingdom come” is both a petition and commitment to be involved in what God is doing—to be active in compassion and service to help usher in God’s new world.

The next three petitions are requests that are physical and spiritual needs be met. We ask God to give us our daily bread, to supply the physical and spiritual needs we have daily. We ask for forgiveness, because it is needed as much as bread. We seek forgiveness in a spirit of forgiveness because mercy flows through the same channel—whether it is given or received. A forgiving spirit is essential to the experience of forgiveness. This is how grace works—it flows freely to and fro, we receive it, even as we give it away. The final petition is a request for deliverance from anything that threatens our confession and participation in God’s new world and/or God’s provision for our physical or spiritual needs.

Following the model prayer is a parable and some sayings about prayer. A friend arrives at midnight and there is no bread to give to your friend. Offering bread was regarded as an essential part of showing hospitality. To fail to be hospitable would bring shame upon the family. So you wake up your neighbor; you do not want to be dishonored for not being able to be hospitable and provide bread for your friend. Even though his whole family is asleep in their small one room house, with the door bolted shut, still you knock until he gets up, even though it means waking up his whole family in the process.

If your neighbor would do that for you, certainly God will do more, who cares much more about you than a neighbor who has to be persuaded through your shameless persistence.

And, says Jesus, if a loving parent provides for and supplies the needs of his or her child, how much more will God. Prayer is rooted in “the how much more” of God. If we who are evil, we who are selfish and flawed, know how to give good things to our children, how much more does God?

It’s interesting to note that whereas Matthew’s version has “good gifts” Luke substitutes the Holy Spirit—how much more will your Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. Luke is anticipating the giving of the gift of the Spirit to Jesus’ followers following Jesus’ death and resurrection. This is really the best gift that can be given: it refers to the continued presence of Jesus with his followers. Christ is with us. This is the promise at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “I will be with you until the end of the age.”

Jesus is not teaching us how to get answers to our prayers. Jesus is not teaching that if we want to get what we ask for we have to wear God down by being persistent. There is something to be said for persistence and staying with our request, but Jesus is not suggesting that God has to be persuaded or cajoled to act in our behalf. Jesus is teaching that prayer is grounded in the character of God; a God who is loving, compassionate and generous.

In Flannery O’Conner’s short story called The Turkey, a little boy named Ruller has a poor self-image because nothing seems to turn in his favor. At night he hears his parents analyzing him. He hears his father say, “Ruller’s an unusual one.”

One day while trotting through the woods, Ruller spots a wild turkey that had been wounded. He starts out after it. He thinks, “if only I can catch it and go home with that turkey slung over my shoulder they will say, “Look at Ruller with that wild turkey! Ruller, where did you get that turkey?” And he imagines saying, “Oh, I caught it in the woods. Maybe you would like me to catch you one sometime.” But then a thought flashes

through his mind, “God will probably make me chase that damn turkey all afternoon for nothing.” He knows that he shouldn’t think that way about God—yet that’s how he feels. And if that’s how he feels—can he help it?

Ruller finally catches the turkey and he thinks that maybe it’s a sign of God’s change of mind towards him. He even starts to feel some gratitude and thinks about giving his one dime away. He prays that God will send him a beggar so he can give his dime to a beggar. And sure enough a beggar woman shows up and with his heart thumping up and down he thrusts the dime into her hand and dashes on without looking back.

Ruller then notices a group of country boys shuffling behind him. He turns around and asks generously, “Y’all wanna see this turkey?” “Lemme see it,” one boy says. And Ruller hands him the turkey. Just then the turkey’s head flies into his face as the country boy slings it up in the air and over his shoulder as he turns away. And the others turn with him as they saunter down the street.

They are a quarter of a mile away before Ruller moves. Finally they are out of sight. Ruller creeps toward home. He walks a bit, and then as it starts to get dark, he begins to run. O’Conner ends the tale with these words, “He ran faster and faster, and as he turned up the road to his house, his heart was running as fast as his legs and he was certain that Something Awful was tearing behind him with its arms rigid and its fingers ready to clutch.”

Well, if that is how we think about God; if that is how we perceive God, as Something Awful” out to get us, then prayer will not work. We have no reason to pray. More and more I am coming to realize that all true religion boils down to how we imagine God and how we live based upon that perception.

According to Jesus prayer is grounded in the loving, generous character of God. The asking, seeking, and knocking that Jesus calls for is not a blanket promise for anything; it must be understood in the context of the model prayer. Those who are characterized by the spirit of the model prayer, those who stand in the posture of the model prayer, drawing from their relationship with God, focused on God’s new world, open to be a channel and conduit of grace—these are the ones who are told to ask, seek, and knock.

Prayer only makes sense when we put it in this larger context. If asking were only a way of getting what we want prayer would be harmful to us rather than helpful. Our asking, seeking, and knocking is in the context of communion and cooperation with God’s purpose in the world. Our posture for asking must be one of forgiveness and humility, as we share God’s compassion for the needy and as we serve as agents of God’s mercy. Only in the context of God’s unconditional love and kingdom purposes does prayer make sense.

I like Dallas Willard’s definition of prayer. “Prayer is conversation with God about what we are doing together.” Otherwise prayer can simply degenerate into an exercise in consumerism. This may explain why the obscure prayer of Jabez is more popular than the model prayer of Jesus. The prayer is tucked away in a little passage in 1 Chronicles: “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” It’s all about “me.”

The Lord’s Prayer is about “us.” It is a community prayer and it’s not about my territory, it’s not about expanding my little kingdom; it’s about God’s kingdom, it’s about God’s story, it’s about God’s new world and extending God’s forgiveness.

I suggest we all start where we are. I challenge you to decide right now to pray the Lord’s Prayer everyday, and you may discover in the process your life being transformed.

Gracious Lord, Teach us how to pray. May the message and meaning of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray be the context for all our praying. Help us to live in the Spirit of this model prayer, to be immersed in it and to be governed by it. As we open our hearts to you, fill us with our love and goodness. Help us to embody your forgiveness and to be instruments of your kingdom. Amen.