Lord, teach us to pray!

Many years ago, my mum visited Israel and brought me home a little mat. We always called it my prayer mat but although it has moved with me many times, it has spent most of its life folded up in a cupboard. My mum was a faithful prayer warrior but I always thought this was “not my thing” and honestly often avoided opportunities to join with others in prayer.

God has been talking to me about establishing ‘unforced rhythms of grace’ (from the Message version of Matthew 11:29). One of the rhythms, I believe that God is re-establishing at this time is a rhythm of prayer. In every church I have been in, and in my own personal life, there has been a battle for prayer. Prayer meetings have often been the worst attended, the most contested, and sometimes the driest and honestly some of the most unexciting. And yet, how can the privilege of communing with the living God be a place of lifelessness? I wonder if we have an enemy who is determined to persuade us to avoid this powerful weapon in our arsenal.

I have been through many purges of my things and no-one would accuse me of sentimentality when it comes to my belongings, but I have never felt I was to throw the mat out, even though I have questioned why I was keeping it. A few weeks ago, I remembered it and felt to get it out of the boot of the car, where it currently lives. God started to speak about a heritage of prayer.

Some of “ancient ways” which are part of our heritage include those in Acts 2:42, patterns that were established as the fledging Christian church began to grow.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Many of us in the church have focussed on identity, on learning about spiritual gifts, on our calling and destiny, on being willing to operate in the supernatural, and many other things but it all has to come from the depth of our relationship with God. The place of prayer is where that grows. One on one with God.

We see in scripture many incidences of Jesus getting up and going off to pray on his own, early in the morning, or all night, or before and after a busy time of ministry, and so on. There is a rhythm of prayer, of times of intimacy with his father, that undergirds his work on the earth. A flow of intimacy and action and back to that place of intimacy. We see the reality of that lifeline of prayer as he is in the garden of Gethsemane; the rawness of the moment as he sweats drops of blood and works things through in prayer until, in Matthew 26:39, he can say:

… My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

We are told so many many times throughout scripture to pray and yet, like the mat my mum gave me, somehow I think I had, to some degree, folded it up and put it in a cupboard, leaving prayer to those who are “called to it”. The reality is that prayer is communion with God, how can I not be called to prayer? It is not that I haven’t prayed. I do pray, regularly. I have had seasons of intercession. I have taught on prayer, led prayer meetings and been involved in different kinds of prayer groups over the years. And yet, something in my mind was still resistant.

So, I have repented for that resistance, my rebellion in this place of intercession. As I was thinking about all this, I was reminded of the scripture where Jesus, in Mark 11:17, says

… Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.

Obviously, I agree that it should not be a den of robbers but realised I was not submitting to the rest of the verse about it being a house of prayer. I had tried to relegate prayer to a certain group in the church. As I have submitted to him in this, he has changed my heart. He has stirred me to want to be in that place of prayer, he has given me a hunger to join with others in prayer and an excitement about what he is going to do as we gather together to pray, acknowledging that this IS a place of action! But action that is deeply grounded in oneness with Jesus.

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray …
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As I looked at this verse in Luke 11:1, I was also struck by something I had never noticed ~ John the Baptist taught his disciples to pray. Part of his preparing the way for Jesus to come was teaching about prayer. In this new season of preparing the bride for Jesus’ return, and of preparing for the harvest of many souls, there is, I believe, a fresh call to prayer. We need to be ready to teach people to pray, really pray, as a place of primary importance.

Firstly though, for each of us, there is a call back to the secret place, to that place of communion with the Father that we need to respond to personally, as in Matthew 6:6

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret …

If we prioritise this place of intimacy with the Father, choosing the secret place first, allowing him to keep us in the place of our first love, we will be less prone to wandering off the path, losing our way and creating a man-centred version of church. The place of intimacy with the Father keeps us on the straight and narrow, as we respond to what he shows us in. We are transformed in the place of surrender in his his presence. We get to hear his heart, allowing him to show us what he is doing so we can walk in sync with Holy Spirit. It is a place to know him and be known. A place of belonging. As we are encouraged in Psalm 46:10

Be still, and know that I am God.

As I have engaged with this fresh call to prayer, this renewed hunger to spend time with the Father, I have felt the desire for it to be deeper and more sustained; a place of constant communion. Deep calling to deep. So I have responded to his call with my own heart cry:

Lord, teach me to pray!