When You Pray . . .

12 Feb

Picture this: you are driving in heavy traffic in an unfamiliar city. You see your destination but there is not an empty parking space anywhere. You drive farther along, then circle around each block in between. Still no vacant parking space. What do you do now? Get angry? Circle the blocks on the other side of your destination? Have you ever thought about praying for a parking space?

This may seem an event too small for God to be concerned with. But it is not. God calls us to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). That means we pray all the time and about everything, talking to Him as we would to a visible human friend. The outcome of such a relationship is a deeper understanding of and a closer walk with our Lord Jesus Christ who is our advocate with God.

There are four places in the New Testament that Jesus uses the phrase “when you pray….” The first one is in Matthew 6:7-8: “But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like … them: for your Father knows what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”

Are you asking yourself how on earth there would be enough to pray for during a given day? We pray for whatever God brings to our minds, like the request for a parking space. And we do it in a conversational way. When we talk to a human friend we don’t repeatedly say a sound or word over and over again. The friend would shrug her shoulders and walk away, shaking her head. So, too, God eagerly awaits our fellowship with Him. Even though He knows what we need, He still wants to share time with each of us and hear our requests. This time with Him is not a tedious droning of the same word or words over and over again. It is intelligent conversation with our Lord. And when He answers our prayers we thank Him.

The next instance of “When you pray…” is in Matthew 6:5-6: “But thou, when [you pray], enter into thy closet, and when [you have] shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which [sees] in secret shall reward thee openly.”

To pray “in thy closet” implies privacy, solitude, quiet, and intent. Some of our daily prayer time needs to be in a place where we are alone with God, away from distractions. We humans need tangible walls around us in order to recognize solitude. The physically impassable barriers around us in our “closet” tend to keep us from visual and audible interruptions. Our closet could even be an isolated place deep in the woods. Furthermore, to separate ourselves from the bustle of the world in order to meet privately with God represents a planned appointment.

The third “when you pray…” appears in the middle of Mark 11:24: “Therefore I say unto you, What things … ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” In verse 23 Jesus sets the standard for faith and belief in receiving what we pray for with the example of a mountain being moved as the result of faith and belief in the request. Right now we have a great many mountains to ask God about on issues of the United States Government alone. Keep in mind that, while a volcano can blow its top within seconds, most mountains are removed one pebble or grain of sand at a time. The prayers for mountains we ask to be removed may take more than our lifetime to be answered. That doesn’t mean we stop praying because prayer is part of our faith, holiness, and obedience to God. God calls us to always exercise prayer with undoubting faith, and that is made possible only by His grace and mercy.

The fourth “when you pray…” is in Luke 11:2-4. It precedes Jesus’ instruction to His disciples on how to pray. I’ll talk about that next week.