Prayer, Commanded

The following thoughts about the Lord's Prayer could also apply to any written prayer found in the Bible (such as the Psalms or the prayers in Paul's letters):

We are usually at a loss regarding what to say to God on behalf of another person or, alternatively, to God himself regarding the fulfillment of his purposes in the world. The Lord's Prayer frees us from the tyranny of spiritual creativity and allows us to rest in the confidence of something certain and true. Instead of fabricating something snappy to garner God's attention, Jesus would have us lose all such originality and simply plagiarize … at the [invitation] of the Lord himself.

What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?

—Thomas Merton, Catholic writer and mystic (1915-1968)

If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle around the same two themes: why God doesn't act the way we want God to, and why I don't act the way God wants me to. Prayer is the precise point where those themes converge.

—Philip Yancey

Emma Daniel Gray died on June 8, 2009, at the age of 95. There was a big story about her in the Washington Post because for 24 years she was the woman who cleaned the office of the President of the United States. She served six presidents till she retired in 1979. Her official title? Charwoman.

What made the story even more interesting was that Mrs. Gray was a devout Christian. She would stand and pray over the President's chair each time she dusted it—her cleaning supplies in one hand, the other on the chair. She'd pray for blessings, wisdom, and safety.

While reflecting on the way she lived life, her pastor said, "She saw life through the eyes of promise is the way I'd put it. You can always look around and find reasons to be [unhappy]…but you couldn't be around her and not know what she believed."

That is exactly what God's people do: see life through the eyes of promise—and pray accordingly.

During one of the most volatile periods of the current economic crisis...Philip Yancey received a call from an editor at Time magazine. The editor's question was simple: "How should a person pray during a crisis like this?" Here is a summary of what Yancey shared in response:

The first stage is simple, an instinctive cry: "Help!" For someone who faces a job cut or health crisis or watches retirement savings wither away, prayer offers a way to voice fear and anxiety. I have learned to resist the tendency to edit my prayers so that they sound sophisticated and mature. I believe God wants us to come exactly as we are, no matter how childlike we may feel. A God aware of every sparrow that falls surely knows the impact of scary financial times on frail human beings. …

If I pray with the intent to listen as well as talk, I can enter into a second stage, that of meditation and reflection. Okay, my life savings has virtually disappeared. What can I learn from this seeming catastrophe? …

A time of crisis presents a good opportunity to identify the foundation on which I construct my life. If I place my ultimate trust in financial security or in the government's ability to solve my problems, I will surely watch the basement flood and the walls crumble.

A friend from Chicago, Bill Leslie, used to say that the Bible asks three main questions about money: (1) How did you get it? (Legally and justly or exploitatively?); (2) What are you doing with it? (Indulging in luxuries or helping the needy?); and (3) What is it doing to you? Some of Jesus' most trenchant parables and sayings go straight to the heart of that last question.

I am increasingly convinced that if the Church is to live, and actually be alive, one of the reasons, maybe the most important and maybe the only reason, will be because we have taken up our place in the line of the generations of the faithful who came before us. It will be because we pray the prayer that Christ himself prayed when he walked among us and now longs to pray through us.

It will be because we choose to no longer be among the ones who silence the prayer that Christ, through his body, prays to the Father.

It will be because we make sure that the wave of prayer that sustained the Church for all time does not stop when it is our turn to say it each day. It will be because we answer the ancient call to pray without ceasing.

— Robert Benson, author and retreat leader, in his book In Constant Prayer

If a church wants a better pastor, it can get one by praying for the one it has.

Now if God has left some things contingent on man's thinking and working, why may he not have left some things contingent on man's praying. The testimony of the great souls is a clear affirmative to this: some things never without thinking; some things never without working; some things never without praying! Prayer is one of the three forms of man's cooperation with God.