The Praying Heart (by John Frye)

The Praying Heart (by John Frye) March 27, 2015

Screen Shot 2015-01-07 at 3.35.58 PMThe Praying Heart

As a person and as a pastor, I have struggled with developing a daily practice of prayer. Countless people have talked to me over the years about this same challenge. I have preached sermons on prayer, read books on prayer (including Scot McKnight’s book Praying with the Church: Following Jesus Daily, Hourly, Today), taught classes on kinds of prayer and participated in many prayer meetings. I have prayed for many people and have been prayed for many times.

Yet, I, like many, feel the need for more regularity, more consistency, more passion.

Do you recall that the chosen Twelve asked Jesus to teach them to pray (see Luke 11:1)? Isn’t that like the New York Yankees asking the now retired Derek Jeter, “Teach us to play baseball”?

The disciples were praying men from childhood. These followers were soaked in God-prayers called the Book of Psalms. They prayed daily at least three times and perhaps even more times as they ate food, faced dilemmas, healed others. Jewish people in Jesus’ day were obsessed with prayer. How can they ask, “Teach us to pray”?

I think that there was a revolution in prayer in the coming of Jesus the Messiah. God incarnate talks to the Father Who is Spirit. I don’t think we can imagine the incredible prayer life of Jesus. These disciples heard it and wanted it. Jesus’ praying caused their regimented, Jewish prayer life to pale in comparison. John the Baptist’s disciples were taught by John and a repentance revolution happened in Judea under John. The Twelve saw Jesus’ startling, crowd-drawing, demon-defeating ministry. They were aware of his praying life and powerful work. “Teach us to pray” is the cry of their hearts.

I suggest that something as important as prayer cannot be left to amateurs like us. Something so characteristic of the life of Jesus cannot be canned in little acronyms like ACTS—adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Pondering the challenges of prayer, the failures at prayer, the gimmicky stuff offered to help us to pray—all this suggests that prayer is all up to us. This cannot be correct. If it is correct, we are doomed.

Within the big, full, robust gift called salvation through Jesus the Christ is a praying heart. Hear me. We do not need to learn to pray. We need to be liberated to pray. As participants in the new covenant we are given many new things: a new name, a new humanity, a new destiny, a new family, and a new heart.

I am convinced the new heart is a passionately praying heart. Twice the Apostle Paul writes that the Spirit in us prompts us to cry, “Abba, Father.” We are prompted to address the living God with the same familial language and within the same relationship so characteristic of Jesus. I do not mean we have the same Father-Son relationship as Jesus and Yahweh have. We do not ever become members of the holy Trinity.

The most common approaches to prayer are filled with ought to’s, should’s, and have to’s. There is a sense of burden. At some point the very prickly words “the discipline of prayer” surface. “Discipline” in a culture like ours is a poisonous word. So, American ingenuity has created systematic aids for prayer. How many “how to” books have been hawked to get us to pray?

But what if? Just what if we don’t need to learn to pray? What if we need to be liberated to pray? I claim You are a praying person. God recreated you in Jesus that way. No guilt. No pressure. No shame. Part of the freedom we have in Christ is the joyful freedom to pray.


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