My Daily Pause

The Lord’s Prayer – ca, 1890 – James Tissot (1836–1902)

How much prayer is enough?

Whatever the answer to that is, my guess is that we don’t pray enough.

We’re too busy. We don’t really need any help. It feels awkward.

Sometimes it is difficult to know what to say. Maybe we feel what we have to say is inadequate.

When we look at Luke’s account of Jesus’ model prayer, we can learn a few things that might encourage us to develop a better prayer habit. (Luke 11:1-13) Jesus taught us that he doesn’t require it to be a fancy production, but it is more about remembering to do it.

Here’s How to Do It:

From looking at only his six line example, he shows us that God wants a prayer that is…

• short and simple
• reverent to God
• about our basic needs – food, forgiveness, etc.

I know we have heard others give long beautiful prayers that say all the right things. That is intimidating. Luckily, we are not responsible for praying like that – and it may even be sinful if the person is doing it to be flashy!

Be comforted that in terms of content, this is one of those times that less is more!

Here’s When to Do It:

The other thing that Jesus teaches us about prayer in Luke 11:9-10 is to always be asking, seeking and knocking. In other words, we need to get out of the habit of going solo until we need something. The way those verses are worded says that God wants us talking to him all the time.

We all know the usual “good times” to have a prayer: At meal time, bed time, etc. Why don’t we add a new time to our schedule –

ALL the time!

What better way to grow closer to God than to talk to him more often “just because?”