A Guide for Prayer

For prayer to be powerful and effective, there has to be at least a few moments of recognizing the One to whom we are speaking.

“What? Isn’t all prayer offered to God?” some might ask.

Not necessarily. I think it is entirely possible to pray and never think of God at all. I think it is entirely possible to rush into God’s presence and rattle off our grocery list as though we are talking to Santa Claus, without even taking a moment to contemplate whom it is we are addressing. Often in prayer, there is little thought of God Himself. Instead, our mind is taken up with what we need.

Jesus gave us a model prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. In reality, the Bible doesn’t call it that. It could be more accurately called the Disciple’s Prayer, because one day, the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Notice they didn’t say, “Lord, teach us a prayer.” Rather, they said, “Teach us to pray. . . . “

Some people will attach a mystical significance to the reciting of this prayer. They view it as sort of the big-gun prayer to pull out when all else fails. But this is not a prayer that Jesus gave as much as it was a model for praying. There is nothing wrong with praying the Lord’s Prayer. If you choose to pray it as it is written, that is fine, as long as it is coming from your heart. But more importantly, it is a prayer that gives us a guide to all prayers that we would offer to God.