We return to the matter of prayer – again. I suppose these years of daily Pages include more references to prayer than any other subject except for salvation’s redemptive message from Scripture, a redemption achieved in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, so conquering sin and death for those incorporating that faith. It is to be remembered that spiritual issues are spiritually interpreted and discerned. Those interpretations incorporate enough natural logic that we can recognize the differences. Why would one pray? If God is omniscient, and we believe that he is, we can’t provide information to him. Whatever information we offer is bettered by his knowledge of the facts of the universe he oversees. Further we believe that his love is so vast that he will do whatever is appropriate for him to comfort and help us through nature’s life sojourn. There is a disastrous way to live – through folly, sin, tragedy and death. There is a direction of God’s blessing through faith, righteousness, health, service, even suffering to death.
Why do I need to talk to God about all this? Likely just because I feel need to talk to him, so to grasp all that is necessary to my own fellowship with God, and remembrance for what I need to do and believe. It is interesting that the more distant God is for a person the less likely that person is to pray. The closer one feels to God, the more likely that person will engage prayer. In the end of things, we pray because it keeps us focused; keeps us in fellowship with God; keeps us thinking in terms of what is the best application of our own lives; and, keeps us in the larger formation of life than would otherwise be the case. In the end we are building our sense of self and reality related to immortality and right (good) over wrong (evil).
Persons at prayer signal something, both to themselves and to those with whom they have to do. My family, having brunch together in a restaurant after Sunday Morning Service at church, take hands and have grace for the meal. Our waiter notes it, and makes remarks that reveal his own feelings consequent to it. He told us yesterday, that he had thought of us during the week because his first grandchild was born, a problem had been resolved, but a dear relative had died. The combination of these life experiences, he said, made him think of us, with the implication that what we believed and did, addressed the high and low points of life to meaning. On another day a lady unknown to me said: I believe I know who you are, and your family, which I have noticed in the restaurant. Her remarks were in a context that the conduct of our family was attractive to her, and communicated the sense of love, acceptance and more than merely human meaning. Prayer is a testimony to oneself and any who intercept it as something that touches on faith in God, something beyond even the common blessings of life. The approach is more likely to bring us closer to what we believe to be the righteousness God meant for us. Prayer reduces hypocrisy in persons. A case could be made that our prayers go around from ourselves to God, and then back to us blessed. God doesn’t need them. We do. God has decided he wants to hear from us, and that it makes a difference.
Teach us to pray, begged the disciples of Jesus. He gave them a model. He did not answer directly because prayer, like breathing, must become a natural factor for persons dealing with the supernatural. We don’t learn to breathe so much as just breathe. On occasion one must be offered some refinement so to breathe better, for the sake of health. We have such biblical aids for our spiritual breath, and Jesus addressed them. The point is to identify the prayer in Jesus’ name, to seek righteousness, to accent the points of prayer for relationships, and then to pray – always. Pray without ceasing. Prayer can become a prevailing attitude. Monks at prayer learn the meaning of prevailing prayer. Even when they eat, they perceive they are in prayer. It is an attitude that, when engaged, is the highest level of consciousness one might find for spiritual life. It permits the engaged person to do all the things he or she wishes to do, but all is wrapped in a devotional spirit that is beyond natural boundaries. This all seems ephemeral and idealistic, but for those who gain it the context becomes natural and elevating. Perhaps there is repetition of attitude. So much of prayer life is repetition of what we have asked previously – rightly so. High prayer is asking, over and over, for God’s will and way in us and the world. Prayer has considerable repetition in it found in nagging God for his will and plan for our lives. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020