It’s a time of year when many pause and stop to give thanks. A key aspect of giving thanks is tied to prayer. In my book, A Heart God Can Use: The Journey to the Center of His Will, I feature an entire chapter devoted to prayer. In particular, I detail the special way the Lord’s Prayer helps us to know what to pray for and how to pray. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with praying the words of Jesus as found in the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer themselves, I also know those words are a powerful launching pad to help us understand not just prayer, but order in prayer.
What does order in prayer signify, and why does it matter? When we go to God in prayer, we go before the Almighty Ruler of the universe. Our goal with prayer shouldn’t just be a long list of things we want, but earnest discussion with God. As we pause to give thanks, let us also pause to consider how we express our gratitude to God through prayer.
Order in prayer
When God first started teaching me about order (somewhere around 2006) He started by addressing my issues with authority. Prior to this time, I was a person who fought order. I had no personal experience with proper concepts of order in leadership. I was used to seeing disorder passed off as order and authority. As He worked with me, God brought people into my life that modeled proper order. Then, as time went on, He showed me the value in ordered prayer. If prayer is our communication with God and we serve a God of order, that suggests our prayer with God to be ordered.
This isn’t to say there’s a right or wrong way to pray. I’m not saying we must follow a man-made prayer approach full of long statements. God doesn’t speak “King James.” We don’t have to use formal language or fancy wording. It’s more an issue that when we approach God with order, we are better able to communicate with Him in an effective way. We can see this nowhere better than in the Lord’s Prayer.
Lord, teach us to pray
And it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. (Luke 11:1, KJV)
The disciples came to Jesus asking about prayer because they saw Him praying. They also knew John the Baptist taught about prayer. Clearly, prayer was important to them – something so important, they knew they needed teaching about it. That is the first key to communication with God: it is something we learn about from the Lord. That is order: we learn about prayer from the One Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If we want to learn about right prayer, we don’t go to a million sources. We don’t go to the Buddhist shrine, or to the Hare Krishnas, or to visit the Imam at the local Mosque. We go to Jesus, and to those who have been taught of Him.
Who we communicate with in prayer
And He said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father Which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. (Luke 11:2, KJV)
Whenever you talk to someone, what’s the first thing you do? You talk to a specific person. In prayer, it’s essential to know Who we speak with. If I go to make a phone call, I dial their phone number and call them by name (or ask to speak to them). I don’t call someone else in the hopes the person I want to speak with will get the message. The same is true with prayer. While many think it’s more advantageous to invoke different beings in prayer (angels, deceased church members, non-Christian figures), this isn’t so. If we want to talk to God, then God is Who we should address in prayer.
Hallowing God’s Name
Hallowing the Name of God shows respect. In ancient times, one’s name represented the fullness of that being. It’s comparable to celebrity status: everyone knows who a celebrity is and their work by their name. The same is true of God’s Name, just in a more reverential way. We know God by His Name. We know the power of God, His fullness, and His grace and glory by His Name. This is our honor to God: we honor that Name. We refrain from its misuse, abuse, and from taking it in vain, making it empty and void. This means our personal conduct is relevant before we ever come before God. We cannot come before God with disrespect toward Him.
May God’s Kingdom come
Praying for God’s Kingdom to come is an action as much as words we pray. If the Kingdom of God is within, among, and around us, we recognize God’s Kingdom comes through our belief, trust, and obedience to God. We ascribe to understand His ways. This applies as much to principles of church governance as it does Kingdom living. Perhaps the most difficult of our prayers, many of us have a hard time surrendering to the idea of God’s Kingdom. We are so busy building our own Kingdom and finding our own subjects that we don’t stop to seek God’s will in situations we face. Here, we humble ourselves as God’s subjects, putting aside personal vanities.
The Kingdom of God is God’s will on earth as it is in heaven; it is the will of God manifest this side of heaven and this side of the second coming. It is something we align with and to, in every aspect of life. It’s not as simple as sitting in a church pew or reading the Bible like it’s a novel. Recognizing the Kingdom and our part in the Kingdom as God’s will here on earth means the church and its people are called to become something more, something deeper – the meeting place of the natural and the spiritual, of heaven here on earth, and something profound. Being Kingdom should change, transform, move us to know God deeper and know His will.
If we are truly Kingdom, what we seek should be of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Everything else in our lives will fall into place as we pursue the Kingdom.
Provision for needs
Give us day by day our daily bread. (Luke 11:3, KJV)
In the words “Give us this day our daily bread,” we find a basic principle of prayer. There is a distinct notation of order in prayer as we ask and receive day by day from God. It is common for us to make this passage about food, but its words are more than that. The Lord has revealed to me four very powerful principles to ordered prayer in this one verse:
Times and seasons
Part of God’s established order throughout time is found in times and seasons. This is where spiritual time meets natural time. Here, we start to understand God’s work in our lives in a practical way. Asking God to provide for our needs day by day recognizes the season we are in and the times of that season. It also recognizes the unique needs for it. Different days, different seasons, different times in our lives call for different needs. God asks us to be spiritually in-tune with His Spirit to know what those needs are.
When in a season, we need to focus on what is needed for that season – spiritually, physically, emotionally, and mentally. However, when we are in one season of our lives, we are often praying or invoking to pick from another season. If you are in a spring season, you have to plant – it’s not time to harvest. A farmer can stand over his seeds and will them to be a harvest all day long. They aren’t going to become one without planting. If it’s harvest time, you can stand over your harvest and pray it to become something new or different, but it’s not going to become that. Praying day by day means we are constantly reassessing where God has us, knowing His times, and aligning with those instead of trying to use prayer to force God to do something we want.
Aligning with God’s will and God’s work
Many times people pray for things to happen just because they want them to happen. None consider if they are for them at this time (not to mention possibly ever), nor do we consider whether or not those things may be good for us or others involved. Not only do we pray for that which is all wrong, we pray for God to do it now. God doesn’t work against people’s will.
You can pray for that person to become your spouse all day long, but if they aren’t interested in you, God is not going to manipulate that person to become your spouse. If it’s not your season for harvest, it just isn’t. God won’t just drop something on you while you pray! If it’s a time to plant, you trust God to help you get out there and plant! Daily provision means we are trusting God to provide everything we need for this moment – this day – this time – this season – this assignment – despite what we see or don’t see. Asking God to provide day by day is a sign of humble submission, order, and obedience to His times and seasons, trusting that everything He gives will be just enough both now and in the future.
Knowing what we need
We live in a very want-based church and society (the church reflecting the society). People are extremely in touch with what they want, often material: they want a new car, a new house, they want better stuff, they want a bigger ministry, they want this, that, and something else…but they are extremely out of touch with what they really need. I know the temptation to start prattling off wants disguised as needs in prayer. We start thinking about one thing that is a genuine need and next thing you know, we’re off on fifteen other things that are really wants.
We can discern need from want in one simple step: if we don’t need it for the day, time, assignment, and season we are on right now…it’s a want, not a need. Even if it’s something we might need for an assignment six months from now, that means it’s not essential to today, and it’s a want. Separating want from need makes God practical and it makes our walk with Him practical and Him accessible to us, even now.
Giving us a sense of God’s presence greater than ourselves in this life
God meets our needs. It’s His promise to us to give us the desires of our heart, and He meets that through our needs. Realizing that God cares enough about us to meet our needs – and watch Him do it – is awesome to behold.
Forgiveness and prayer
And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. (Luke 11:4, KJV)
Forgiveness is also key to prayer – both asking and receiving. We know that unforgiveness hinders prayers. Forgiveness grounds us to move forward. The very foundation to communication with God is forgiveness: in Christ, God has forgiven us. If we aren’t going to be forgiving people, we can’t be effective in prayer.
Temptations
When it comes to matters of temptation, let’s address an essential fact: many believe temptation is of God. That isn’t what the passage states. It simply asks God to protect us from temptation and to withstand against it when it comes. There is no sin in temptation; only acting upon it. Temptation is a part of life. Asking for God to help us stand against it is a powerful thing.
Each time and season comes with its own unique set of issues and temptations, spanning various circumstances. We need to be honest with ourselves – and God – about the temptations we face. Pretending they aren’t there is like trying to ignore a big, pink elephant with a bow on its head sitting on your living room coffee table. If prayer is ordered communication, we must be honest with God in prayer.
God knows the temptations you face. He is there to bring revelation and sort things out. We all know we talk a lot about ‘big’ temptations, but what about the temptation to gossip? To lie? To steal something from someone that isn’t tangible, such as their work or their vision? What about all those times we judge and criticize other people? Addressing temptation is a part of order because when we address it, we can deal with it.
Deliverance
Asking for deliverance from evil is part of resisting temptation, but also asking for God’s protection. We’ve all heard the expression, “New level, new devil.” This applies to temptation and to life in general. Many so-called believers today deny the existence of evil, and its source, the devil. This is a sign of disorder in and of itself. By recognizing the enemy, we recognize God’s power and sovereignty in our lives. It isn’t giving the enemy credibility; it is recognizing God as having the power to control and thwart even the negative and wrong that happens.
The ultimate promise of deliverance from evil came through the cross. It shall finally manifest through Jesus’ second coming and binding of the evil one once, for all, and for good when he is cast into the lake of fire. It acknowledges God’s plan, from eternity past to eternity future, and knows that God is ultimately in control, governing via His own ways and purposes. We may not understand them, but in order, we acknowledge them.
Why pray?
Soren Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, it changes him who prays.” Since we know God does not change, it is God’s good intention to develop and change us, everywhere we need changing. We accomplish this through prayer. Seeing God’s order for us in prayer helps us develop a deeper prayer life and a deeper sense of God when we pray. If we will only look at the words here and see God’s desire for us to have more of Him in our lives, we will change. Our lives, our perspectives, our hopes, and yes, even what we pray for will change.
God calls us to ordered prayer because as much as we connect with Him, we recognize His presence through changing seasons. By prayer, we draw closer to God and have a more established sense of thanksgiving in our lives. Rather than seeing it as just a holiday, thanksgiving should be a running theme through ordered prayer lives. He has the answers to bring us to a place of order and effectiveness in all things…for Thine is the Kingdom, and the glory, and the power, forever…amen (Matthew 6:13).
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In