The Bible tells us that we don’t know how to pray as we should. Often our prayers are filled with selfish requests or, more likely, demands for the things we feel would make our happiness and fulfillment complete. They are often shallow, and more of a routine than anything else. Our thoughts may as well be a thousand miles away on some unrelated topic as we pray “Lord bless this food. In Your name, Amen.” Is this what prayer life is all about? Does it just go so deep and no farther?
Our Savior- the only perfect example we have, spent much time in prayer. This was His sustenance. This was the source of His strength and the depth of His comfort. As He spent time in heart to heart communion with His Father, He was raised above the things of this world into a higher place. This can be our experience too. The depth of communication that He had with His father, we may have with Him. Yet our vision of this experience is so shallow, so small compared to what it could be. These earthly things that hold but little value capture our hearts and minds, and the eternal seems so far away. Truly, we do not know how to pray.
So, this week as we bow before Him, let our hearts’ cry be, “Lord, Teach us to pray”. As You did, as we should. Then let our ears be open to His calling to us to come up higher, to learn what it is He wants us to pray for.
Coincidentally (or not!), just after I finished reading your post I picked up Pope Benedict XVI’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” which I’m currently immersed in, and found that I was beginning the chapter on the Lord’s Prayer. The Pope talks a good deal about that very verse, and about prayer, and his thoughts are quite profound. I thought I’d share these two paragraphs from the book, in which he talks about the request ‘Lord, teach us to pray’ and how it prefaces the Our Father:
“The context, then, is that the disciples see Jesus praying and it awakens in them the wish to learn from him how to pray. This is typical for Luke, who assigns a very special place in his Gospel to Jesus’ prayer. Jesus’ entire ministry arises from his prayer, and is sustained by it. Essential events in the course of his journey, in which his mystery is gradually unveiled, appear in this light as prayer events. Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Holy One of God is connected with encountering Jesus at prayer (cf. Lk 9:18ff); the Transfiguration of Jesus is a prayer event (cf. Lk 9:28f.).
The fact that Luke places the Our Father in the context of Jesus’ own praying is therefore significant. Jesus thereby involves us in his own prayer; he leads us into the interior dialogue of triune love; he draws our human hardships deep into God’s heart, as it were. This also means, however, that the words of the Our Father are signposts to interior prayer, they provide a basic direction for our being, and they aim to configure us to the image of the Son. The meaning of the Our Father goes much further than the mere provision of a prayer text. It aims to form our being, to train us in the inner attitude of Jesus (cf. Phil 2:5).”
—’Jesus of Nazareth’ by Pope Benedict XVI, pg. 132
I realize that the vast majority of the readers here aren’t Catholic, but nevertheless I think that some of you might very much enjoy the Pope’s book. He’s an amazing scholar, very familiar with Scripture, and his study of Jesus is truly profound. I definitely recommend it; I think non-Catholics would also find much beauty and thought in it.
Amen. This is something I’ve been praying recently – “Lord, teach me to pray” – as I know I should press in to a deeper lifestyle of prayer. Thank you for the reminder, and for sharing your thoughts!