The Practice of Prayer

“And after He had dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray.”—Matthew 14:23

Prayer is to the soul what the spa is to the body. It relaxes the soul and enables it to gain perspective from God. Whenever a person prays, he or she is showing a greater dependence upon God than on oneself for the situations, problems, and struggles that one is dealing with. Prayer is an acknowledgement that our dependency is upon God and that we need His power and perspective in whatever it is we are facing. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, He got away to pray. He spent a great deal of time in prayer. Prayer enabled Him to remain focused, spiritually wise, and connected to the Father. As human beings, we do not have omniscience (we don’t know everything), omnipotence (all power), or omnipresence (being everywhere at the same time). We are fleshly, grounded to this walking dirt we call our body, chained as a boat to a dock. And while we live in this fallen world, we are faced daily with problems greater than our capacity to bear or understand. We are brought to the end of ourselves day in and day out. While some attempt to evade the problems of this world by turning to escapist pleasures, or mindless pastimes, we bow the knee and get alone with God in prayer. We do not find delight in the things of this world that take us away from God, but in the things of this world whereby we can find delight in God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Christ instructed and demonstrated for us how we are to pray. In Matthew 6, His instruction was that we  

“go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you”—Matthew 6:6. 

And once we get away by ourselves, we are to make sure that we don’t  

“heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words”—Matthew 6:7. 

It is not because of the kind of words or the amount of words we use when we pray that God desires to answer us. He doesn’t care for our verbal sophistication or knowledge. He cares for the condition of our hearts before Him. We come humbly and through His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and when we do so, He hears us because of His Son and not anything that we have done in and of ourselves.

When Jesus prayed, He got away and poured out His heart. He prayed before, during, and after great events. He prayed at His baptism (Luke 3:21), and spent the night in prayer before He selected the apostles (Luke 6:12). He prayed after He fed the five thousand (Matthew 14:13), before the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-29), and wrestled all night in prayer before He went to the cross (Matthew 26:36-44). His life was characterized by intense and frequent private prayer, and ours should be as well. We must be sure to make prayer a priority and a habit of our everyday life.

I have struggled with heartburn for years, to the point where I need to take a certain medicine every day. It’s a priority for me, and when I get up, the first thing I do is take the pill I need. It was hard to do at first, and I would sometimes forget it, but no sooner had I forgotten it than the heartburn would rear its ugly head in the back of my esophagus. After several painful episodes of that, I didn’t forget my pill anymore. Prayer is similar. Whenever we pray, we are coating our soul with the power of God, showing our dependence and desire for Him to rule and direct our life. May we make prayer a habit of the heart day in and day out, just as Jesus did, so that we might be in constant connection to Him who is our soul’s delight. May we pray each and every day, cultivating the habit of intimate communion with God through prayer. Amen.