As things heat up outside, we’re taking things “back to basics” as we take a look at the six chief parts of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism.
All it takes is a meal amongst Christians. All of the sudden, there is a recognized need – someone to say grace before the meal. I’ve seen this any number of times as people nervously look around for the person who will be the “prayer-er”. They may know “Now I lay me down to sleep” and the Lord’s Prayer, and maybe the Serenity prayer…but there’s still a desire there for someone who will say more than a memorized prayer, someone who knows “how to pray”.
“Lord teach us how to pray,” is a strange request of Jesus’ disciples in Luke 11. Having grown up in Israel, most of these disciples would have grown up praying to God at least every morning upon waking, at every meal, and before settling down for bed. There were prescribed prayers for all of these events – sort of like Luther’s morning and evening prayers, and the “Lutheran Common Table Prayer” . The disciples knew some prayers, but they could recognize there was a difference between “knowing some prayers” and “knowing how to pray”.
So when Jesus gives His disciples (including us) His prayer, He is not only just teaching us a prayer to memorize. He is showing us the “how” of prayer as well as the “what”. And so what are the “how’s” of prayer that we see in the Lord’s Prayer? First of all, it starts off with a fatherly relationship to God. Luther wrote in His catechism that we are to approach God as “dear children ask their dear father”. Secondly, it involves aligning our prayer with God’s will, not the other way around. We are to pray that God’s will be done, not our own. Lastly, it involves actually being conscious of our needs for things like daily needs, forgiveness, and deliverance. Jesus shows us that the “how” of prayer is relationship, alignment, and consciousness. That’s more than just memorizing some words.
As you pray this week, whether those prayers be pre-written, memorized, or off the cuff, think about how those prayers bring you into a sense of relationship with God, an alignment with His will, and a consciousness of what You need from Him.