"Lord, teach us to pray," Jesus' disciples say in Luke 11. Jesus responds by giving His disciples the shorter form of what we call the Lord's Prayer. (The longer form, the one Christians tend to memorize, is found in Matthew 6.) Jesus teaches us to pray through the model He gives in the Lord's Prayer as well as the other prayers we find in the Bible, such as the psalms. But I think Jesus teaches us to pray in other ways, too.
A couple months ago I encountered a quote by J. Neville Ward: "The purification of desire, the education of human wanting, is one of the principal ways in which God answers prayer." That quote has stuck with me. I think I've experienced that in my life. Last week I wrote about how the Holy Spirit is always at work in the lives of Christians to make us more like Jesus. According to Romans 8, the Holy Spirit prays for and with us. Sometimes I come to prayer angry or stressed or fearful or desperate. Sinful and selfish person that I am, sometimes I want vengeance or an easy way out of my troubles or the freedom to do whatever I want. But when I begin to pray the Holy Spirit often changes me. The Spirit reminds me that God is in control, that I am in God's presence. Suddenly those selfish, sinful prayers don't seem as appealing. If I pray them I'll soon end up confessing. And many times I don't actually pray them at all. Instead I'll ask God to work in my heart and show me my faults. I'll ask for strength to endure or growth in Christlikeness or God's blessing on people who have really been bothering me. It doesn't happen all the time; I'm far from perfect. But after years of trying to pray and learn what God wants by reading the Bible, I find that God is answering my prayers by shaping how pray, by purifying what I pray for. And that makes me want to know and love God even more.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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