If you look over the 20 or 25 articles on prayer in this blog, you will see I have sometimes taken people to task for their faulty prayers. I’ve teased them about silly prayers and laughed at their funny mistakes and grown exasperated at what I considered foolish, Pharisaical prayers.

May I apologize?

After all, a prayer is directed to the Father not to the children. None of us has been commissioned to or gifted for the task of correcting the prayers of our sibling

I’m impressed by how little criticism of actual prayers we find in Scripture. In Luke 18:10-14, our Lord did say that the tax-collector went home “justified” (forgiven, made right with God) that day. But He did not say a word about the Pharisee and his prayer. Granted, it was implied that the boasting prayer was rejected, but the Lord sure let that fellow off easily, I’ll say that.

And in James 4:3, we’re told that some prayers are offered from wrong motives, resulting in silence from Heaven.  And Isaiah 59:1-2 says our sins separate us from the Lord and prevent our prayers from getting through. But in neither case did they criticize actual prayers.

I hereby promise to stop criticizing prayers.

Continue reading “About Your Prayer…I’d Like to Apologize” »

….We do not know how to pray as we should…. (Romans 8:26)

I find it liberating to know that the great Apostle Paul was dissatisfied with his prayer life. At least, that’s how I read Romans 8:26. And if he could admit that “we do not know how to pray as we should,” it’s a dead-on cinch that you and I don’t either.

One thing almost everyone in your congregation has in common on a typical Sunday morning is a dissatisfaction with their prayer life. That is not to say that all are doing poorly, only that none of us feels we have got it down right, that we are praying with the effectiveness we’d like.

In this life, we are always going to be doing things partially. “We know in part,” Scripture says. “We prophecy in part” (I Corinthians 13:9,12).

Good music, they say, is music that is written better than it can be played. The Christian life is like that: written better than any of us can hope to attain in this life. The standard of God is still the same: “Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We will not attain it in this life, but that’s how it’s written.

So with your prayer life. You and I mumble in our prayers, like a child still learning to talk. It frustrates us and disappoints us, but–do not miss this–is oddly pleasing to the Father in Heaven.

Continue reading “Your Poor Prayer” »

My mother’s Alzheimer’s has taught me something about prayer.

As a young pastor visiting local nursing homes, I would sometimes hear patients calling out, “Help me! Would somebody help me?” as I walked down the hall.

“What’s wrong with the staff here?” I wondered. “Why aren’t they helping this poor soul?”

Since my mom, almost 96 years old now, came down with Alzheimer’s or one of its relatives (senility, dementia) over the past few months, our family has been trying to take care of her in her own home. Recently, I spent a long weekend there contributing what I could to her care.

“Help me,” she calls out repeatedly. Even when she’s feeling fine and seems to have no needs at all, she repeats this. If you ask, “What do you want, mom?” she doesn’t have an answer. She seems to have been unaware she was saying that.

On one occasion, as I awakened from a brief afternoon nap, I heard mom in the next room chanting that mantra. “Help me. Help me.” I walked in and said brightly, “Mom, would you like some ice cream?” She stopped chanting abruptly and said, “Yes, I think I would.” I had to laugh at the speed of that transition.

A few days later, on the way to church, I sent up a quick prayer to the Heavenly Father. “Lord, help me please.” And just as clearly I heard His answer.

Continue reading ““Lord, Help Me!”” »

To be sure, we know a lot about prayer. We know it’s of faith–addressing a God whom we cannot see and are unable to prove that He’s even there, much less listening to the likes of us–and we know we ought to do more of it and do it better.

But, it occurs to me, it might be helpful to address some of the things we do not know about prayer.

See if you find any of this encouraging.

1. We do not know how to pray as we should.

That’s Romans 8:26. “Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

Continue reading “5 Things You Do Not Know About Prayer” »

Then He spoke a parable to them, that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. (Luke 18:1)

Pray or quit.

Pray or grow discouraged and drop by the wayside.

Pray or weaken and wither away.

If I were the devil, I would do anything within my power to stop God’s people from praying.

If I were the devil, I’d be patting myself on the back about now, since it would appear that very few are praying. Well, praying in any sort of meaningful, situation-altering way, anyway.

No one believed in prayer the way the Lord Jesus did.

Perhaps no subject so permeates the four gospels like prayer. Jesus exhibited it, taught it, reminded His disciples of it, and told stories of people who did it well.

Pray or else, disciple of Jesus.

Continue reading “Pray or Else!” »

This is one that almost never gets addressed. It was put to me this week by my friend Nancy. Her note, almost verbatim:

Someday I need you to help me understand why we are told when we pray and believe our prayers will be answered. Then people die in spite of our pleas for health. I know it is within God’s will but why ask if His will is what is going to occur anyway? I know thousands of prayers were said for (a friend who died some years back) and for my friend I saw buried today. Thousands are being said for (a friend with cancer) yet she is in a battle for her life.

We are told “you have not because you ask not.” Maybe this would be a good blog topic. I can’t be the only one who struggles with these thoughts.

If you only knew, Nancy.

On this blog, I probably have fifty articles dealing with prayer in one way or the other. And–truth be known–most of them skirt around the edges of this subject.

So, let’s try to meet it head on.

Let’s start by this upfront admission: Things are not as simple as they seem at first.

Frankly, as one who likes things simple and cut-and-dried, this is painful to admit.

The Bible actually does say things like: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives….” (Matthew 6:7-8) And this: “Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).

There are plenty more, but those two are sufficient to establish that the blanket promises are out there.

What are serious disciples of the Lord Jesus to make of such prayer promises?

Continue reading “The Biggest Problem About Prayer” »

You’re sitting in church, working hard to worship. You’ve had a hectic week and this Sunday morning has had its share of stresses. But finally, you’re here, in place, in the Lord’s house, sitting in your favorite pew. You’ve joined the congregation in singing the first hymn of the day. The minister has started the service right with a wonderful call to worship. And then it happens.

The person leading the opening prayer strays across an invisible border and says something that offends you or frightens you or angers you or troubles you or at the very least disturbs you.

That’s what this is about.

Just so you will know, I’m a pastor. We pastors have the same reaction you do when the person praying–whether a layman or a trained minister who should know better–says something very wrong or quite stupid or somewhat offensive. We wonder what that was all about, where he learned that doctrine, or where he picked that weird phrase up and decided to incorporate it into his public prayers.

Everyone has his/her list of prayers that cross that deadline. Here is my list of the Top ten prayers I hope never to hear again.

10. “And Lord, we want to tell you…and Lord, this, and Lord that.”

My neighbor Kay Swanson hears people pray, “Father God, Lord, I pray….and Father God, that you would…Lord God, Father God, be merciful to us….” Kay says, “Please! When you’re speaking to me, you don’t invoke my name between every couple of words. Why do you do this to God?”

Using the Lord’s name as punctuation is a no-no.

Continue reading “10 Prayers I Hope Never to Hear Again” »

They invite you to bring a talk, a lesson, or a sermon on prayer. Your first thought, if you are normal, is, “Who me? What little I know about prayer you could put in a thimble.”

There may be some Christian somewhere who considers himself an authority on prayer, but I have yet to meet him. The truly godly men and women known as prayer warriors will tell you they feel they have just enrolled in kindergarten.

I’m confident of this one thing: our Heavenly Father is not happy with any of His children claiming to have the inside track on how to approach Him, how to “get things from God,” “how to make prayer work for your benefit,” and how to get on His good side.

Jesus Christ has done everything necessary for us to enter the Throne Room of Heaven. See Hebrews 4:16.

Jesus Christ has opened the divider between man and God and we have an open invitation to “come on in.” See Hebrews 10:19-22.

If you and I are not entering God’s presence and lifting up our needs and petitions and interceding for those on our hearts, it’s not God’s fault. It’s not the fault of Jesus, who did everything necessary to make it possible for us to pray effectively.

So, come on in. Come in humbly, for this is the Throne Room of the Universe. Come in worshipfully for the One on the Throne is the Lord of Lords. Come in boldly because your Authority is the Blood of Jesus. Come in regularly because you live in a needy, fallen world. Come in with Jesus: in His Name, by His blood, for His sake.

That’s what we want to teach others.

But there are some things we do not want to teach, no matter how great the temptation.

Here are three cautions for anyone about to stand in front of others to teach prayer.

Continue reading “Before You Speak on Prayer, Three Cautions” »

This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.(Mark 9:29 NASB)

Anything but prayer.

In my Bible where this verse has been highlighted, I’ve underscored those three words and written in the margin, “Yep. That’s us. Anything but prayer.”

To be sure, I’ve taken those three words right out of their context. That is, I’m using them in ways not intended in the text. But the point is a valid one: We are prone to try everything in the world before we turn to prayer.

Somewhere I read where a fellow was talking with his elderly grandmother about a family problem that was eating at her. “Well, in the final analysis, Grandma,” he said, “All we can do is pray about it.”

“Oh my,” she said. “Has it come to that?”

Yes, and sooner or later it always comes to that.

Let’s talk about that.

Continue reading “Anything But Prayer” »