Prayer Changes Me

Devotional Reading: Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” Luke 11:1 NLT

Most of us learned to pray from the time we could talk. We learned to adopt the posture of prayer, eyes closed, palms together, and sometimes kneeling. It’s a serious business, and it didn’t take long for us to recite our prayers from memory or, as we used to say, “by heart.”

Yet, nobody could prepare us for prayer in the grown-up world. The exchanging of wishes between ourselves and God became way more complex and messy. The prayers we recited by heart as children seemed to have vanished. At times we’re left fumbling around as if in the dark, unsure of our words, wondering if any of this will make a difference, and reluctantly offering our human wishes and ideas in exchange for His.

In Luke, we see that the disciples took note of how Jesus prayed, and one was brave enough to approach Him with a simple request; teach us to pray. It’s not like they didn’t know how to pray; they were probably like you and me praying since we were children. Yet they saw something that made them desire to pray as Jesus did.

Prayer changes things, yes, but it took me a while to realize that what has changed, more than anything else, was me. I didn’t always welcome the change process, but I found that the more we interact with our Father in heaven, the more we begin to desire His will in our lives and in those we intercede for.

Prayer and Confession
Thank you Jesus for the privilege of prayer. Help me to be committed to this discipline. Amen!

Further Reading: Luke 6:12, Colossians 4:2