What is prayer? Prayer is a specific act, but it is also an abiding attitude of the soul. It is the expression of a constant faith which looks, moment by moment, to Christ...for life, for sustenance, for deliverance, for strength, for everything. Prayer is living coram deo - before the face of God; thus the apostle can instruct us to "pray without ceasing." Obviously, this is not a requirement to remain on our knees or with heads bowed and eyes closed in perpetuity, but it does require us to maintain a perpetual posture of dependence, continually aware that as creatures we are wholly reliant on our Creator.
Having said that, we know from Scripture that prayer is also an action that occurs at a given moment in space-time history. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, he didn't instruct them to have a fixed attitude, to gaze dependently at the face of God, or simply to live a certain way. He gave them words - the words of The Lord's Prayer, which should inform and pattern our own prayer life. (Notice that he did not tell them they didn't need to "learn" how to pray...nor did he tell them to just spontaneously pour out their desires, feelings and needs.) Somewhere along the way, someone condensed the pattern of this prayer into the acronym "ACTS" - Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving & Supplication. While this approach can be helpful, it can potentially leave us with an impoverished view of prayer.
One way we might enrich our understanding, and consequently our practice of prayer, is through examining other prayers throughout Scripture. It can be useful to examine them in light of the Lord's Prayer, and to establish mental categories about the sorts of things for which we are taught to pray in the Divine Record. These categories emerge somewhat naturally from within the traditional division of the petitions made in the Lord's Prayer. I have also found it helpful to view these prayers in light of the definition of prayer given in the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
BTW, none of this is set forth as authoritative Biblical exposition on prayer, but as the thoughts of a Christian heart and mind that desire understanding and transformation. Feel free to correct any erroneous remarks. In Sunday School we are being taught how to use Psalms as both the prayerbook and hymnbook that it was intended to be, and this prompted me to meditate on these things as well as review the way in which I have taught the children about how to pray rightly.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment