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Pray or delay?

14 January 2007                         See also  Christian Life blog

When I was in my 20s I went on a mission with a man who was a member of the Free Presbyterian Church (the ‘wee frees’ they were called). He was a godly man who prayed amazing prayers. I was very impressed by the way his prayers started.  No jumping straight into requests. He took his time recounting the wonderful character of God, as he had learnt to do from his reformed heritage.

I learnt a lot from his prayers. But there was a temptation to pray for the sake of the beauty of the language. It was a tricky question. Was the prayer composed out of respect for God – to honour him by the way I spoke to him? Or was I myself the real audience? Or worse still –was I praying to the people who were listening?

Audiences are very powerful. That is one reason Jesus said to shut the door when we pray – to shut out all audience except our Father.

Some of us, especially when we first begin to pray in public, find the audience intimidating. We are afraid of saying the wrong thing, or using the wrong words, or failing to use the right words.

But there is a bigger problem when we pray on our own. What is it that will really get God’s attention? Do we need to pray many times? Do we need to give God all the details? Do we need to tell him exactly what we want done? Is our faith shown by the fact that we ask for specific things? And if so how specific do we need to be?

Or is it earnestness that counts? Will God pay attention to half-hearted prayer? When we listen to Jesus’ instructions, we are surprised by the way he seems to cut the ground from under our prayer. He says our Father in heaven knows what we need before we ask. So the obvious question leaps out – so why pray?

But that may not be the only obvious question. Another question might be – why delay? If he knows what we need before we ask, then getting an answer seems hopeful. And without any need to get his attention, or impress him with lots of details.

Sometimes we are not sure whether he knows what we need as well as we do. That’s why it is so good to be praying to a Father, actually not somebody else’s Father but our Father. And maybe, since he has kindly adopted us as his children and brought us into the same family as his only Son, we can give him the benefit of the doubt about that.

Dale

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