Teach Me To Pray

"Personally I'm always ready to learn,
although I do not always like being taught."

- Sir Winston Churchill

I have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to live a life of learning. In fact, besides my 7 and half years of collegiate ramblings, I have attended a host of continuing educational experiences, enrolled in several correspondence courses, read books about my varied fields of interest and have feigned a few applications to graduate school. As a student of music, I took private lessons and master classes from "masters" of the art. As a husband and parent, I've been to marriage weekends and parenting conferences.

I love facts and historical tidbits and knowledge of something that someone else doesn't know. Part of that is the "magician" in me...Deeper knowledge that is supposed to be kept "secret."

Yet, when I get around someone who really knows their stuff and begin to face the reality of how far short I fall from the "mark" they have set, I usually shrink back. "Ahhh, shucks! I can't play my guitar that well. I'll just watch you!" It's not really a false humility or schnooze going on. I really feel like I haven't prevailed long enough to have earned the right to play with the "big boys."

Now to the subject at hand -- Prayer. Over the years I have learned a lot about the discipline of prayer. I've attended prayer meetings, prayer concerts, prayer & fastings, schools of prayer. I've read books on prayer, attended conferences on prayer, listened to podcasts on prayer. I have prayed in public, prayed in the spirit, prayed while worshipping, and even "fallen out" while being prayed for.

But when I move beyond all the knowledge, all the books, all the meetings, all the experiences, I still feel like I have a lot to learn. So more book? More conferences? More stuff? Is that how I can go deeper?

I have determined that, like the quotation from Sir Winston Churchill, I have shrunk back from being taught. I need to begin to embrace the process of being "taught" to pray. 25 years of learning aside, now is the time to engage The Master Teacher - Jesus and begin the process of discipleship under His tutelage.

There are several outcomes/expressions that are direct results of aligning with The Master.

First of all, I am spending more time in prayer. "DUH!" you say. Yes, the sublime simplicity of such a notion betrays the more salient truth behind the words of James 4 --

"What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God." (v. 1-2)

How much time do you spend in prayer? Before you answer, consider the question from this angle -- If prayer is as much about being before the Throne of Grace, being with our Master Teacher Jesus, as it is about asking Him for stuff, how much time do you spend in prayer?

I have determined that my life is more about increasing my time with God in prayer (in the context of the latter definition) than it is about prayer lists, prayer meetings, etc. Yes, I am more and more engaged in the IHOP movement, but I get no browny points for time spent in the prayer room. I have set my every breath aside to sing the praises of Jesus and to draw near to God in intercession.

James 4 continues:

"When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." (v. 3-10)

My second major outcome is that I have dedicated my ever-aging brain tissue to memorization of the entire book of Psalms -- All 150 Psalms. I've given myself 2007 to accomplish this daunting task. My purpose in keeping the theme of being taught to pray -- to help facilitate the utterance of spontaneous, continuous, God-breathed prayers from my heart to the heart of God. What better thing do than to pray and sing the Scriptures. From my innermost being.

Remember, when the disciples approached Jesus, they said, "Lord, teach us to pray," not "learn us something about prayer." So I simply say -- "Jesus, Teach me to pray."

Selah