Confessions of a Failed Prayer Warrior

Confessions of a Failed Prayer Warrior

As a pastor, I have preached and taught hundreds of times on prayer.  The problem is I haven’t always practiced what I preach.

Why? I get busy. I get distracted.  I get bored.  Other people experience God’s majesty and joy—more often I have fallen asleep. Other people write of their closeness to God—my prayers seem to hit the ceiling and bounce off, without ever having seemed to contact the Divine Listener.  

When it comes to prayer, I can be a real hypocrite.

I think part of our (by that I mean my) problem with prayer is that we have heard much of prayer, but have never actually learned how. Prayer is not a subject to be studied but a skill to be learned. When Jesus’ disciples asked Him “Teach us to pray”, they did not have in mind “Teach us about prayer.”

It’s not that we don’t know what prayer is—we know very well. It’s the practice of prayer where we lack. We have heard sermon after sermon on prayer, but we do not know what to do.  In Jesus’ day, rabbis didn’t just teach on prayer, they were trained to pray. We have been taught, but not trained.

For most of Christian history, people were trained as well as taught to pray.  From their earliest years we learned sample prayers. We learned to fold our hands, bow our heads and recite “now I lay me down to sleep”. In our more individualistic times, we tend to avoid such ritualistic prayers.  We fear (and rightfully so) that prayer will become an empty ritual. But in avoiding methodology, we have allowed prayer to become an intellectual exercise or an emotional exercise, rather than a life skill. We learn prayer by doing, not studying.

How do we learn to play a musical instrument?  We practice! If we continue to practice, eventually we get better. Prayer is the same.  Effective prayer requires that we develop the necessary skills to get the most out of our time with God.

That is the goal of this series of lesson—to train in the necessary skills to become effective warriors. These skills do not come easily.  The only come with concentration and practice.  No one conquers the mystery of prayer easily or quickly, any more than we can learn to play the piano or solve differential equations easily.  It requires time and effort. We must set aside time and expend energy learning how to pray.  Only then will we experience the full measure of our life with Him. 

Consider the next six weeks basic training in prayer. We are going to start with the very beginning, learning the meaning and the potential of prayer in our lives.  We will learn to pray not the ritualistic prayers of childhood, nor in the lackadaisical prayers of a casual church attender, but to pray fully and seriously, with a vision towards finding the fullness of our wonderful God.