Dreamers’ Hub

It was said that one day, one of Jesus’ disciples came up to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

This statement is the starting point for anyone who wishes to touch the world through prayer. We have been taught many wonderful truths about prayer in our churches, cell groups, Bible Schools and seminaries yet our people still don’t pray; our people still find it hard to mumble even a simple thank you to God simply because we have started on the wrong foot. We have chosen to start our prayer journey on grandiose statements about what prayer can do rather than on a desire to say, “Lord, teach us to pray.” We often tell people that God answers prayer or all things are possible through prayer.

The result is what we see on our churches today: prayer on pursed lips, empty pews during prayer meetings and believers who feel drowsy on a simple mention of the word prayer. Believers are dazzled more by what we say prayer can do- heal the sick, raise the dead, move mountains and so on than by what it will actually bring them eternally.

Enthusiasm, though, doesn’t equal real power. Prayer has both temporal and eternal results. Healing, resurrection and answers to problems like financial provisions and divine interventions in seemingly difficult situations are temporary results of prayer. The more lasting results are spiritual strength, an overcoming life and a strong faith among others. The sad thing is that we get more excited to see miracles wrought by prayer than to witness lives transformed by it.

People in the world today want to know how to pray because they thought it would produce whatever it is they need. They have become a generation of Harry Potters with cheap prayers for spells to cast magical results. In effect, Hindus and Buddhists go to their prayer gurus and were taught to say mantras to their gods. Christians too unknowingly join the bandwagon. They buy books from their own prayer gurus who publish how to’s in praying effectively.

These ways-to-pray-effectively type books give me the chills because they tend to focus on the more temporal results of prayer. They teach us that our prayers are only effective when they get the desired results of healing, dead people resurrected and other various miracles.

It seems that believers today are sanitized by cheap prayers. Prayers that focus only on temporary results are cheap. We ought to pray more like Jesus than most of the faith and prayer gurus that we have in the church today.

Sad to say, believers read the prayer manuals of these prayer gurus more than they read the Bible. They never realized that in it, the prayer manual from the greatest prayer warrior of all is right within their grasp.

This disciple which I mentioned earlier had more sense. He came to the right person and said, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Who would be a better prayer mentor than He who would hear and answer our prayers? If we want to know how to pray, let us begin by coming to Him who answers and hears our prayers and say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Two things stand out in this one liner from Luke 11: 1. First, the unnamed disciple’s request shows that a believer’s desire to pray should not be forced. It should be voluntary and should emanate from a heart that truly desires to grow in the faith. Second, this disciple’s request is an admission of a universal need. His request is not just for himself but for others with him. His request is reflective of our need too. People from all generations need to realize that we should be taught by the greatest teacher, Himself, how to pray.

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