How Should We Pray?

Today is the National Day of Prayer.  It sounds kind of lofty and makes me wonder, "How do I pray today? What do I pray for today?  What prayers does God want to hear from me today?"

A friend who I consider to have discipled me when I was a young wife once said, "You should always have a book on prayer going because it's an area we can always improve upon."  I'd say it was nearly 20 years ago he uttered those words, but they are never far from the front of my mind.  Prayer.  A mystery in many ways.  Hundreds of books have been written on the subject which confirms it is an inexhaustible topic.

I certainly am not going to tackle every aspect I know about it, but I've been hearing a sacred echo this week regarding intercessory prayer.  I love praying for others and I love when others pray for me.  What a tender gift from God that we could care for and encourage one another this way but is it possible our prayers might not be very effective because we let our feelings get in the way?

Let me explain.  In one of my favorite books, One Thousand Gifts, Ann VosKamp suggests that when we tell our hurting, suffering loved one that we would "write their story differently if we could", that we are in fact rebuking God. Could this be an unknowing, unintentional arrogance?  Are we suggesting that we know what's best? What a more palatable outcome might bring?  Or that we can see the big picture/spiritual purpose that The Author and Finisher of our Faith can only see?  We don't and we can't.  Ouch.  I shudder to think about how many times I have taken this stance.  Even just this week I told a friend that if I could do something to minimize or remove her pain, I would.  What?  Does that mean that deep down I'm suggesting that I love and care for her more than her Heavenly Father?  Oh my. The only comfort is knowing that I've done it unintentionally driven by sheer sympathy.

We need to be so connected with God and His Word (His ways) that we pray for His best interest and concern in that person's life. Oswald Chambers writes, "It is impossible for us to have living and vital intercession unless we are perfectly and completely sure of God. And the greatest destroyer of that confident relationship to God, so necessary for intercession, is our own personal sympathy and preconceived bias. Identification with God is the key to intercession."*

When I read Jesus' prayer for His followers in John 17 and the many prayers Paul prayed for the churches in his letters, I see an interesting theme.

John 17:15 Jesus prayed, "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one."

Phil. 1:9 Paul prayed, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ."

Col. 1:10-11 Paul prayed, "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father.."

Eph. 1:17-19 Paul prayed, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.  I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for those of us who believe."

Wow!  Those are power prayers.  Spirit-filled prayers.  I would like them prayed for me. It's what my prayers should be on behalf of those I love.  Yet my prayers tend to look more like this:  "Lord, please make this situation go away for my friend.  Release her from her pain. Make everything right.  Give her happiness. Get that one who is hurting her, make him pay., etc. etc."  They sound more sympathy driven than power-of-God-on-your-behalf driven, don't they?  I have some friends who are going through some really heart wrenching, where-is-God kind of  hurts and I pray for them often.  Life is hard.  Now I wonder if my sympathy prayers are helping them very much.  I think modeling the Scriptural prayers may bring about the will of God much more beautifully.

Well, I for one have been to the woodshed today.  In sin? No.  Have I upset God?  No, I don't think so.  But have I researched something in His Word and been taught something new?  Yes and that makes me accountable to do something with it (like obey) lest I become like the deceived one described in James 1 who merely listens to the Word and does nothing with it.

I think I'd rather be in this camp: "But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does."  James 1:25

Let's pray prayers that reflect the heart of God toward the people we love and then watch in amazement as He does His thing - which is always perfect, always good, always higher than ours".  I just love God, don't you?

*My Utmost for His Highest