The Practice of Prayer

Prayer Expertise
Romans 8:26-27



Like many of you I have heard prayers offered in most every imaginable locale, prayers in many languages, prayers in a countless number of circumstances, and prayers from young and old.

When I was a child, Dr. McInnis’ pastoral prayer was longer than his sermon. When I was in seminary I would often worship at First Presbyterian, Atlanta, not only to hear Dr. Fifield preach, but to hear Dr. Howell pray. I’m sure Moses sounded just like Dr. Howell. I sat on a log in worship in Kananga, Zaire, and listened to a Zairian pray in Chuluba and marveled at the beauty of the words. I’ve heard persons pray in ‘tongues’ and understood not one word. I’ve heard prayers that made no sense and I’ve heard prayers that cut to the point in a hurry. I’ve heard lofty, magnificently worded prayers that seem to be ‘other-worldly’. I’ve listened to an illiterate black man murder the King’s English in his prayer and believed it to be the most honest prayer I’d ever heard. I listened to my dad’s prayer when we all thought my little brother was dying. (He did not.) I’ve listened to mothers and fathers, husbands and wives pray for their children, and I’ve heard children pray for their parents. Those prayers were usually powerful expressions of faith. I’ve heard a few sentences spoken in a prayer that seemed to me more from the heart than a long winded prayer. I’ve heard prayers that informed God of a situation as if God didn’t know what was going on. I’ve heard prayers that sought to impress those who listened. I’ve heard prayers that made me angry and I’ve heard prayers that reduced me to tears. Once, in a nursing home, when I was a student in seminary and had come to preach at that nursing home, an elderly gentleman prayed for me after the sermon and said, “God, this boy is full of himself. Put him in his place.” Some of you have heard my story about Mr. Alex, the oldest elder in my first church. I asked him to open a Session meeting with prayer and he said, as he spit tobacco in a can, “Pray yourself. That’s what we pay you for….”


I relate these memories because I want to ask, “Are there any real experts in prayer?”


Years ago I began collecting books on prayer. I had a full shelf of such books. Books on prayer by famous names, by pastors, by laypersons, by persons of many different faiths. Some of them were very helpful. Some were not worth the paper they were printed on.


I value today the prayers of Peter Marshall, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and some by persons whose names you have never heard. I like to read the prayers in the Psalms, and the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and the prayers of Sister Teresa and those of Martin Luther King. I’ve read insights into prayer that have stuck with me through the years. Like Fosdick’s admonition that if you only have three minutes to pray, spend two of them ‘listening’. Or Barth’s words, “If you have something you really need to say to God, you’ll not take forever to say it. It won’t be a long prayer.”


Are there any experts in prayer from whom we can learn ‘how to pray’, learn what prayer is all about, why prayer is so difficult or so easy for some?


What about Jesus? In John 17 we have what is referred to the ‘high priestly prayer’ of our Lord. It a lengthy prayer in which he prays for himself and then for believers. It is a prayer that soars from the lips of our Savior. In Mark 14 we have his breathless, three-sentence prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane just before he was arrested. That prayer leaps agonizingly from the mouth of Jesus.


In Mathew 6 we have a beloved prayer we pray here every Sunday – the Lord’s Prayer.


Who are the experts in prayer?


In our Roman 8 lesson, we are told “We are weak and we do not know what we ought to pray for.” Or, as Eugene Peterson translates it, “If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” The RSV puts it like this: “The Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” The NIV reads, “The Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”


Then, Romans gives us this huge promise: “The Spirit intercedes for all the saints.” The Spirit takes our stumbling, inadequate efforts to pray and infused them with his power and takes them to God the Father for us, in our behalf. What a promise!


The truth is, there are no experts on prayer. Only Jesus knew how and what to pray. We are weak, conceited, arrogant and illiterate when it comes to prayer. Still, in scripture, we are commanded to pray. We are invited to pray. We are encouraged to pray.


Rachel Henderlite, the first woman ordained to the Ministry of the Word and Sacrament, wrote a book entitled “A Call to Faith.” In it, she talks about prayer. I found her remarks helpful. Henderlite reminds us what ‘prayer is not’. Prayer is not, she reminds us, a practice session; rather it is warfare. Prayer is not a letter to Santa Claus, a litany of things we want. Prayer, she writes, is not a theological discourse, but an earnest conversation with Almighty God.


Yes, there are books on prayer that can be helpful, and some books on prayer that can be dangerous to our spiritual health. Yes, there are helpful acronyms others have found helpful. There are many suggestions about how and when and where to find your prayer time most effective. Bookstores are full of such help. Libraries overflow with volumes on prayer.


But there are no experts on prayer, except Jesus.


Yet, we have these words of the Apostle Paul; “The Spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.” Thank God for that. Let us not forget that we have scriptural helps for our prayer lives. Both the Old and New Testaments provide us many insights into a meaningful, effective prayer life.


Read of the life and writings of Brother Lawrence, author of a little book entitled “The Practice of the Presence of God”. His name was Nicholas Herman, born in France in about 1605. He came from a humble background and was not a learned man. In 1629 he was converted and gave his life to Jesus. After some time as a soldier, he entered a religious community and took the name Brother Lawrence. Though he worked in the kitchen the rest of his life and died in 1691, his influence became widespread. He had discovered an aspiring way of prayer which consisted of a simple and constant practice of the presence of God. Though not many of us will be able to practice his unceasingly high thoughts of God, he can teach us something terribly important about our prayer life. Brother Lawrence was not an expert in prayer, but he taught me, 400 years after his death, that prayer is not primarily ‘something I do’, but rather, prayer is an attitude -- an awareness of God’s presence in all of my life. Prayer is not made proper by being on one’s knees, or folding one’s hands, or speaking correct and acceptable words to God.


Prayer is first of all an attitude, an awareness of the presence of God, a practice of continually being open to the Holy Spirit.


Yes, it is important to find time to be in a posture of prayer, to say words, to fall before God in praise, confession, intercession and petition. But, listen to Brother Lawrence: "There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful, than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it. The practice of the presence of God is a way of life that anyone who seeks to know God's peace and presence can practice -anywhere, anytime.”


Let me repeat that last line: “The practice of the presence of God is a way of life that anyone who seeks to know God's peace and presence can practice -anywhere, anytime.”


In his last letter Brother Lawrence wrote these words: “God knows best what we need. All that He does is for our good. If we know how much He loves us, we would always be ready to receive both the bitter and the sweet from His Hand. It would make no difference. All that came from Him would be pleasing.” Brother Lawrence died within days of his last letter.


The last words of Jesus on the cross were a prayer: “It is finished.” Within moments he was dead. His promise to his disciples and thus to us was that he would give them and us his Spirit to empower us. That same Holy Spirit takes your stuttering efforts at prayer, wraps them in his perfect will, and takes them to God the Father for you.


So, pray. There is no perfect way to pray. Just pray. It doesn’t matter how you pray. Just pray. Better yet, develop an attitude of prayer. Become aware of the presence of God.


Practice being there.