A 'How To' Manual on Praying

We live in a day and age when we believe we can do anything we set our minds to and we can control our ‘universe’ by the choices we make. We learn to modulate our tone of voice and choose our words to gain cooperation, acceptance, admiration, etc. from others depending on our goals. We learn from science that if you put A with B, you will get AB and if you remove C from CD you will get D. It is very clear that this is how the world works.

So when it comes to God and praying, we tend to believe that if we do everything just right, our prayers will be answered according to our wishes, hopes and dreams. We look for verses in the Bible about prayer and say, “If I have enough faith…” or “If I am persistent enough…” But it doesn’t work quite like that. God is not constrained to our demands, thoughts, and desires. Even Jesus had to accept a different answer than He hoped for. Let’s visit Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.’” Matthew 26:39 The answer? Jesus was arrested, put on trial, mocked, tortured, and hung on a cross to die. This was God’s very own Son!

By our definition of answered prayer, Jesus’ prayer was not answered. He did not get what He wanted! So I wonder if maybe we need to change our definition of what answered prayer looks like. Jesus wrote the ‘Procedure Manual on Prayer’.

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation… So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’” Luke 11:1-4, 9-11

How does this possibly line up? “Ask and you will receive.” All I have to do is ask and God will give me whatever I want. Right?

Back to the Garden… What was Jesus really doing in the Garden? Why didn’t God ‘answer’ His prayer? When I picture Jesus in the Garden, I picture a very stressed – even in anguish – young man. I believe Jesus, God in the flesh, was struggling to align His heart and actions of His flesh with God’s will. He obviously knew that He was going to die. He had told His disciples that on several occasions. But when the time came, the flesh struggled to submit. Because Jesus was fully human as well as fully God, He had to deal with very human responses to stress and anguish. Jesus spent the night in prayer not demanding God give Him what His flesh desired, but aligning His will with the Father in order to be willing to submit to the death on the cross that was coming.

When is the last time I struggled with my flesh, wanting one thing while God was taking me somewhere else? Did I spend the night praying my flesh through the difficult choice to obey or not obey? Because Jesus was willing to obey, we are given the wonderful gift of salvation. When I choose to obey – even when it is painfully hard – is it possible I am extending that gift to others?

I have learned through many hard trials to trust God. If He can take the hardest thing ever – Jesus, the One without sin being tortured and killed on the cross in order to pay the price for our sins and in order to bring about His resurrection, demonstrating eternal life and inviting us to join Him in His kingdom – surely He can take the trials in my life and use them for good.

What I have learned from Gethsemane is that I can share my heart’s desires with God, but then I ask God to show me if they are His desires and submit myself to His answer, whatever it is, in order to do the most good for His kingdom. My desire is to align my heart and will with Him – not get Him to align His will with mine. As a child of the King, my desire is for His will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Following at a Distance

Peter – the Rock – the Rock upon which Christ intended to build His Church – the one who would never leave Christ’s side – committed, strong and focused. This is the Peter who “followed at a distance” (Matthew 26:58) and then denied that he knew Jesus not once, but three times! How could this be? How could one so close and committed find himself denying that he even knew Jesus?

It is easy to give Peter and the other disciples a hard time for not sticking close and defending their Lord. But then I wonder – would I have been able to stick close? Would I have totally abandoned Jesus or would I have had the courage and curiosity to follow at a distance? And then the wondering goes deeper… how do I respond even now?

Jesus taught His disciples day after day about the Kingdom of God – a spiritual kingdom – not an earthly one. But the Jewish nation was looking for an earthly king – like David – to rise up and free them from the Roman rule. The disciples heard Jesus day after day, but applied it to their understanding of an earthly kingdom. Imagine the confusion when they watched as He was arrested! Everything they thought they understood and believed just went up in smoke! And their human response was to try to save their own tails and disassociate from the One whom they had been following – every one of them including Peter, the Rock. But Peter followed at a distance.

First I wonder, how many of us as Christians follow Christ at a distance – not wanting to put ourselves on the line or get into the heat of the spiritual battles. When discussions begin in the workplace or neighborhood gathering, do we identify ourselves as followers of Christ? Or do we slip into the background and disappear? We feed on His words Sunday morning year after year, but do we understand what He is teaching us? Or do we try to fit what He is teaching us into our own ‘truth’ and perceptions of the world around us?

And if I were to be asked outright, “Do you follow Jesus?” how do I respond? Do I say, “Yes, and here is why…?” or do I fudge or even outright deny so I don’t have to put myself on the line and possibly be ‘crucified’ socially?

Like Peter, I have in my past found my weakest point, when I was willing to deny I knew Him to ‘save my skin’ or at the very least to avoid conflict. Maybe I didn’t say the words, “I never knew Him,” but my actions did. And I saw Jesus turning to look at me while the cock was crowing – I knew on the spot I had failed. It had become more important for me to be socially accepted by those around me than to identify with the One who came to save me and establish His Kingdom here on earth as well as in heaven.

At that point, I have the choice. I can go like Judas and fully self-destruct because I have failed. Or, like Peter, I can have that hard conversation with Jesus and decide to accept His forgiveness and get about the Kingdom work again. Jesus doesn’t avoid us or kick us out when we fail. He offers us His hand of fellowship and reinstates us if we are willing and continues to give us Kingdom work to do – “Feed my sheep.” Jesus is saying to Peter, “Don’t just say the words, DO THEM.” If you love me, “Feed my lambs,” “Take care of my sheep,” and “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

We all have a choice every day… we can wallow in our self-destructive behaviors or we can accept God’s forgiveness and get about the work of “feeding His sheep.” We can learn to love others the way Christ loves them – being willing to die for them in order for them to experience His great love and forgiveness. My human side wants to hold onto my skin. But when I am willing to abandon the need to protect myself and willing to give myself freely to God’s Kingdom, I can experience the deep, forgiving, re-instating love of Jesus and get about caring for others.

Thank you, Jesus, that you don’t give up on me. I am awed that you continue to use me in your Kingdom even when I have failed over and over. Keep teaching me your love and give me a heart to love others as you do, to see them as sheep in need of being fed. Fill me with your Spirit of love, compassion, mercy and grace so that I can extend a hand of fellowship to others just as You have done for me. Thank You. Amen.