If I were to replicate a school classroom setting for a few moments and spring on you a surprise quiz consisting of just three “True or False” statements, I know you’d Ace this one. Let’s see if I’m not correct. #1: “Prayer is important,” T or F. You better have answered True. #2: “God answers prayer.” T or F. If False, then I’m wasting a lot of my time emailing out a flurry of prayer requests to you every week. And #3: “We could all use to pray more,” T or F. Be honest. If you didn’t Ace this quiz – hmm.
But now let me tack onto the end of this last T or F statement, this fill-in-the-blank: “I don’t pray more because …. blank.” Fill it in. Why don’t you, why don’t I, pray more?
Some of your answers would probably be in the ballpark of, “Prayer takes time;” or, “My mind wanders when I pray;” or, “I’m just so busy.” By the way, these excuses are actually mine; these are how I filled-in-the-blanks.
Some of you, however, may have answered with something like this: “I don’t pray more because I don’t know how to pray.” Whereas my three excuses demand more commitment, for those of you who echo this latter excuse, yours demands more instruction. Fortunately for you, Jesus did just this. In the misnamed prayer offered two millennia ago, the so-called Lord’s Prayer, but more accurately dubbed the Disciple’s Prayer, Jesus taught us how to pray.
Why not come this Sunday as we begin to mine the treasures of this prayer by exegeting the opening phrase, “Our Father Who is Heaven.”