Christmas? No. Halloween? No. Elections? No way! Remember that in November it will be Thanksgiving and it is all about that attitude of gratitude. I find it ironic that this season of gratitude falls right before the season of making lists of stuff we want.
In the past year I have been given a heightened awareness of prayer and many answered prayers have resulted in a renewed vision for prayer. This is not to say that I have successfully manipulated God to give me stuff. It is to say that I have been learning a few things from experience, participating in a study of the Lord’s Prayer and am currently reading a book about prayer called Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Timothy Keller. So I thought I would share some of the things I have learned about prayer.
Since Jesus gave an example of how we should pray, this will start with what he said. There are entire sermons written about just one of the lines of this prayer, however, it is the overall attitude that I see in the Lord’s Prayer that speaks to me the most. So each line will be followed by my own summarizing note about each phrase, emphasizing the attitude and focus.
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. The focus of this prayer is God. Shift my focus to him.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Prayer should be about listening to God’s agenda, not the reverse.
Give us this day our daily bread. We should recognize our dependence on God for our physical existence.
And forgive us our trespasses… We should recognize our reliance on God for our spiritual existence because we are sinful and dependent on his grace.
…as we forgive those who trespass against us. We are expected to follow his example in our life.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We have no control and depend on God for our protection for the very real forces of evil around us.
This is how Jesus said to pray. It is a humble prayer. I see the overall attitude of this prayer as reverence for the majesty of our creator and admission of our total dependence on him. This leads me to believe that the wrong way to pray is the opposite…with pride. So I must check my attitude before I jump in with a wish list for The Giver of All Life. And if I do this correctly, my wish list will vanish along with my pretense.
From the aforementioned book by Timothy Keller about prayer, I have discovered these important points about prayer. They resonated with me so I will share them here. They originated from John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion but they are my paraphrase of his points. He refers to them as prayer rules but I think of them as prayer attitudes.
His first point is to approach God with joyful fear. It is my biggest challenge to retain my awe of God in a lifetime of familiarity. I like to think of this description: tremble with the privilege of speaking to the Creator of the Universe. This makes me think of a song by Lauren Daigle called Tremble. I will place the link here so you can go listen to it. This song expresses this point of view excellently.
Calvin’s second point is an attitude of spiritual insufficiency. This is described as being ruthlessly honest about my flaws and weaknesses. No grandiose facades. God knows.
In restful trust, let go and let God handle our issues. In Keller’s book it is suggested that we could say, “Here’s what I need–but You know best.”
The fourth attitude is to pray with confidence and hope, knowing that God will give us the best answer in his own time and it will be so much better than our ideas.
So may we all remember in this season, that prayer is about a frame of mind of joyful reverence, honesty, trust and confident hope. ‘Tis the Season!