Lord, Teach Us To Pray
This morning we started Luke 11 in our early morning Men's Bible Study. It begins with Luke's account of Jesus teaching His disciples how to pray at their request. The great thing about our study this morning was how serious our men were about prayer and learning to pray more effectively. Their hunger was an encouragement to me.
We all need to be learning how to pray more effectively all of our lives. Just like we can always grow in our communication skills with our spouses, our children, and our friends, we can always improve our conversations with God. Make no mistake, prayer is supposed to be a two way conversation with God. We are to speak, but we are to spend time listening for His response, too. In fact, prayer is finding His will, so we can do what He wants. It is not getting Him to do what we want. That would be a disaster.
So many people have trouble praying, because they get tired, or they don't know what to say. We have to pour out our hearts to the Lord and let Him help us with every problem. We need to enlist His aid for every decision. We need to pray for every important person in our lives. Therefore, we have plenty of things for which to pray. The problem is spiritual focus. Perhaps, we need a better prayer list. Maybe, we need to walk around and pray out loud if we tend to get tired. Whatever it takes to have an effective prayer time is what we must do.
Maybe we should all just do what the disciples did after they saw Jesus praying by Himself every morning. Perhaps, we should stop and say, "Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us not just to talk to You for a while. Teach us to listen and to obey. Teach us to pray without ceasing as we go through the day." Then, we will see You work in our lives, because we have discerned Your will and done it in Your power. That is our goal.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Isaiah 26-28.
We all need to be learning how to pray more effectively all of our lives. Just like we can always grow in our communication skills with our spouses, our children, and our friends, we can always improve our conversations with God. Make no mistake, prayer is supposed to be a two way conversation with God. We are to speak, but we are to spend time listening for His response, too. In fact, prayer is finding His will, so we can do what He wants. It is not getting Him to do what we want. That would be a disaster.
So many people have trouble praying, because they get tired, or they don't know what to say. We have to pour out our hearts to the Lord and let Him help us with every problem. We need to enlist His aid for every decision. We need to pray for every important person in our lives. Therefore, we have plenty of things for which to pray. The problem is spiritual focus. Perhaps, we need a better prayer list. Maybe, we need to walk around and pray out loud if we tend to get tired. Whatever it takes to have an effective prayer time is what we must do.
Maybe we should all just do what the disciples did after they saw Jesus praying by Himself every morning. Perhaps, we should stop and say, "Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us not just to talk to You for a while. Teach us to listen and to obey. Teach us to pray without ceasing as we go through the day." Then, we will see You work in our lives, because we have discerned Your will and done it in Your power. That is our goal.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Isaiah 26-28.