Thoughts on Prayer

Tom Sweatman shares some thoughts 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.”’
Luke 11:1

If you had the privilege of asking the Lord for one specific blessing, would you ask, ‘Teach me to pray?’

Some may ask ‘Lord teach me how to work, teach me how to preach, teach me how to make money, teach me how to get a partner..’

But ‘teach me to pray’ is surely the wisest request because every other blessing in the Christian life depends in one way or another on our ability to pray.

Everything we need and everything we do for the Lord depends on prayer.

Yet if you’re anything like me it is often hard to consider it as something of fundamental importance.
Work, rest, reading and in fact just about anything often takes precedence over prayer.

Yet without prayer our work is useless, without prayer we cannot rest, without prayer we cannot understand the scriptures and without prayer we cannot live godly lives. So why don’t we pray?

The Lord Jesus clearly did not hold the view that prayer was of minimal importance. He was God in flesh, yet he prayed, he had the power to perform miracles, yet he prayed, he was sinless and perfectly obedient, yet he prayed. But somehow we think we’re alright without it?

‘The most important part of our lives is the part that only God sees. The hidden life of prayer is the secret of an open life of victory.’ Robert Law.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne says: “What a man is alone on his knees before God, that he is, and no more.”

No Christian rises any higher than his praying.

Lord, teach us how to pray.

by Tom Sweatman