Teach us to pray.

Oh to be a fly on the wall for that conversation¹.

Wait. We actually have a written record of it.

Few things interest the believer quite as much as how to pray properly.

Why? You may ask

We want our prayers answered, and that means we want to pray prayers that are considered acceptable.

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much².

James threw a major wrench in theology when he made that statement.

We all want prayers that availeth much. The question now is how do we ensure that those prayers are effectual and fervent?

Thus the great attention when listening for how Jesus taught his disciples to pray.

When you’re in religious mode, the Lord’s prayer is really not that impressive. First of all, it can be prayed in less than five minuites. You would think that to catch God’s attention, we would need at least an hour of prep work; perhaps another hour of saying enough so that He hears us, and maybe about 30 minutes to wind down and exit the prayer frame of mind.

That at least, sounds fervent and close to effectual.

It’s akin to a thought I had as a kid. Hard work meant manual labour. If you weren’t swinging a shovel or an axe and sweating to prove it , you weren’t working hard. You could be sitting behind a desk for hours on end trying to align numbers on a spreadsheet. You could be strategizing a plan for an entire organization using an app on your phone; but that to me didn’t fall under the realm of work.

Age and perspective has brought me some wisdom.

You don’t have to sweat to get something done.

You don’t have to have iron-man muscles to have impressive output, and you don’t need multiple words on repeat to get God’s attention.

Lucky for us, Jesus talked a bit about prayer – even outside of teaching His disciples to pray.

We are not to think prayer gets heard because those prayers run long as we say the same things over and over and over again³. Hmm

We are also told to not believe we get heard because we prayed impressive prayers in public⁴. Double Hmm

What Jesus asks, is that we come in sincerity⁵. And that is something we tend to do when we’re not trying to impress God or man.

Sincerity is when you don’t say anything because you have nothing to say.

Sincerity is when you fumble your words because your mind is so messed up with circumstances you never thought you would have to deal with.

Could it be sincerity is what makes prayer fervent?

Maybe.

I do know that prayer doesn’t necessarily mean pacing, sweating or putting up an act.

God does know our needs even before we ask, and He doesn’t ask for perfect prayer before He decides to meet them

Now that is something to think about.

¹Luke 11 v 1-13

²James 5v16

³Matt 6v7

⁴Matt 6v5

⁵Matt 6 v 6 -7

Have you wondered if your prayers are good enough?

Let me know. Comment below