When one of the disciples asks Jesus how to pray, it is most likely because he has noticed Jesus spending time alone, praying.* If we want to learn a principle, it helps to look for someone who lives it. While familiar with John the Baptist’s teaching about prayer, the disciple has not been able to make a beginning. He still stands in that dark and silent space of wanting to pray but being unable to pray, that wide gap between desiring and doing.
How relieved we are to hear Jesus say confidently, as though we certainly will be able to do it: “Here’s how.” The outline he gives is simple: ask for God’s way of doing things to become our way; ask for everyone’s daily needs to be met; ask to be forgiven and to forgive others; and then ask for the strength to resist any of the temptations that tug us away from all of this.
Prayer is no magic potion, a dab of this and a pinch of that, accomplished in proscribed ways. Prayer, Jesus says, is relationship. Prayer is persistence. Prayer is pestering God at midnight. It’s okay to pester God to forgive us, to pester God to give us what we need. We can nag God to show up in our lives in ways that help us to show up, too. Don’t just stand at the brink of prayer and never make a beginning. Go to the source. Keep on asking. Keep on looking. Keep on knocking. Keep on.
-- Kayla McClurg in Passage by Passage, Year C
For More
- What am I learning about myself in regard to prayer?
- Do I experience a sense of relationship with God when I pray?
- What are some needs for which I am willing to pester God?
