How do we pray then? And what do we pray for? Just what we need? Just our wants and our desires?
Fr. Peter John Calmeron, in his book Lord, Teach Us to Pray, calls us “to embrace a fundamental truth about prayer: In prayer, God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response. As God gradually reveals Himself, and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call. Our chief responsibility in prayer is to become able and eager to respond to God’s offer of self-giving, image-perfecting love.”
Prayer then is a pleading of the promises God has placed in His Word for us to use in other people’s behalf. God knows I need to have my needs met. And I can point out to Him a huge credit card debt that is facing me, and I can plead His promise to take care of it and then trust Him for it. But it’s not so I can run up another big debt on a paid off card. If I can use that knowledge of God to help me pray for others, to further His kingdom influence, then I am “seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness”. I have to trust Him that “all things will be added to me” after seeking His blessings.
Andrew Murray assures us in his book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, that as we get a deeper insight into what prayer really is, this truth that “He knows the things we need before we ask” will help much to strengthen our faith. We do not need to compel an unwilling God to listen to us. When once we have been led by the Spirit to the certainty that our request is indeed something that, according to the Word, we do need for God’s glory, it will give us wonderful confidence to say, “My Father knows I need it and must have it.” And if there be any delay in the answer, it will teach us in quiet perseverance to hold on to that promise.
Therefore, dwell much in the inner chamber, with the door shut. To be alone in secret with The Father is our highest joy. To be assured that the Father will openly reward the secret prayer is our strength day by day. And to know that the Father knows that we need what we ask; this is our liberty to bring every need in the assurance that our God will supply it according to His riches in Glory in Christ Jesus.
The way to begin to pray, then, is to turn all these troublesome things right over to God with the humility, dependence and confidence of the tax collector in the temple who prayed “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” That is the indispensable foundation for all authentic prayer, as the famous Christian of The Way of the Pilgrim discovered. This nameless 19th century peasant walked across Russia and entered into a state of great holiness simply by reciting the Jesus Prayer: “Lord, Christ Jesus, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” In learning to pray, it is crucial for us to follow in his footsteps of humbly giving our heart to God.
In short, praying is as easy as breathing. As the peasant of this book reminds us, “to pray means to direct our hearts and minds to constant remembrance of God, to walk in His divine presence, to arouse in oneself the love of God by means of meditation, and to say the Name of Jesus in harmony with one’s breathing and beating of one’s heart.”
May the Blessed Spirit give each of us grace to think and to say the right thing, and to do what shall be pleasing in the Father’s sight! (Andrew Murray)
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