Teach Me To Pray
What Is Prayer?
By Dr. John Wagner
Prayer is humbling ourselves before Jesus Christ (God) and acknowledging our utter dependence on Him for all of our needs. It isn't simply "thinking good thoughts." It is also not just "positive thinking."
Prayer is the life-link between us and Jesus. During prayer we fellowship with Him and receive encouragement and direction for our lives. We bring the needs of others to Him and receive from Him the things they need.
I am constantly hearing people, including fellow clergy, refer to the "power of prayer". Let me shock you by making a statement I firmly believe, but one with which many of you may disagree: In and of itself prayer has no power!
It is precisely because so many of us believe the notion that prayer has 'power', or that prayer 'moves the hand of God', or other similar cliches, that we get into trouble. We come to God with this long wish list; like He was a heavenly Santa Claus or the divine tooth fairy. Then when we don't get what we want we get angry and pull away from God and blame Him because we did not get the things we wanted or the things we wanted to happen, didn't.
I've heard the story of a little boy who prayed with all his might that his mother, a very godly woman, would be healed from some disease with which she suffered terribly. His mother eventually died. When the little boy became a man he was angry and never wanted anything to do with God, the church, or Christians. He boasted that he was an athiest and proud of it! All because of his anger at God for not healing his mother.
We lose sight of who we are and who God is! All too often we treat God as if he were our butler. We ring and He is supposed to say, "You rang, master?" We give Him our demand and then He is to march off smartly and fulfill our every desire.
We lose sight of the fact that we are the creation and God is the creator. It is God who is all powerful and deserves our respect and worship. Because of our sinful lives and arrogant pride we don't "deserve" anything from God, except His wrath! And yet, out of His love and mercy He hears our prayers and responds to them. It is God who is all powerful - not our prayers.
Coming to God in prayer is no different than when my daughter, when she was a little girl, came to me and asked me for something. Her request had no power by itself. It was only in her love relationship with me that her request stood any chance of being fulfilled. It was also only in my love for her and my desire to fulfill her request that her request had any chance of being granted. It was not in the "power" of her asking.
Did I always say 'yes' to my daughter? Of course not! Sometimes I couldn't, but at other times I knew it wouldn't be good for her. I had to make that determination as her father. In her teen years she would occassionally come to me with what one would call an 'attitude'. Her request sometimes was not granted then simply because of the way it was made.
When we come to God we need to come remembering who we are speaking to (respect)! We need to make sure our heart attitude is right (humble). Then we can make our requests known to Him (needs and desires). Finally, we need to remember, as with earthly fathers, God has three possible answers for our requests - YES, NO, and WAIT.
I believe we live in a very self-centered and self-indulgent time. We need to begin focusing on who God is (sovereign) and remembering who we are in relation to Him. When we get that perspective right we might see that we are getting a lot more prayers answered than we thought. That might lead us to say "Thank you" to our Benefactor a little more often and talk a little less about our 'power' in prayer!