Drilling Prayer Into My Brain

I'm not sure exactly what day it was, but recently I realized something horrible: lately, I've been spending time learning about God without spending time with God himself. I have not been thinking about the relationship aspect of the Christian walk. The head knowledge is extremely important, but its end is to bring the heart closer to God.

But what was missing? I had been reading my Bible daily. I had been listening to good Christian teaching on a regular basis. I had even recently started reading a daily devotional on the Internet. I had started slowly studying 1 Thessalonians. I'm still doing those now, and those are all very good things I ought to continue in, but...something was missing.

So what's missing from that list? I'll give you a few hints.

This past week, Renewing Your Mind, a radio show I listen to daily, had a theme to its teaching. Monday's episode featured R.C. Sproul reading his children's book titled The Barber Who Wanted To Pray, which tells the true story of how Martin Luther's barber, Master Peter, asked him how to pray, and Luther taught him his personal method. The next two broadcasts were about God's providence and why we should pray, even knowing that God already knows what we'll ask for and has his plans. Thursday he taught how to pray, and the week concluded with an explanation on The Lord's Prayer. Along with all that, the chapter that we were reading in Wayne Grudem's book Christian Beliefs for Christianity 101 is titled "What Is Prayer?

In all this, I realized that God in his providence was trying to get something into my head. But what?

You get three guesses as to what it was. No, it wasn't the proper method of engaging in presuppositional apologetics. And no, it wasn't the Aristotelian rationale behind the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation (though I did learn about that this week, though that's a completely unrelated blog post I may write in the future).

Never mind, I'll just tell you. It's prayer. Come on, people.

That's right, that same old thing I still seem to have a problem with. Despite my desire to be as theologically sound as possible, despite my desire to lead my children to Jesus, my personal prayer life has been all but non-existent. And as any good (or average like myself) theologian could tell you, a lack of prayer is a serious hindrance to one's relationship with Christ and any semblance of Christian growth, both of which are essential aspects of the Christian walk.

In reality, I realized I needed to get back into the habit of praying on Monday while listening to the audiobook about Martin Luther and Master Peter. It was only on Thursday when I saw that this week's chapter of Grudem's book was about prayer that I noticed God's providence in the mix.

So I pretty much devoured every teaching on prayer that I heard this week. Despite that, though, it wasn't until Friday that I started trying to get back into the habit of daily prayer. Ever the lazy sinner, right?

As I wrote previously, it's a personal help to me to write down my prayers. It helps me focus and stay on track. I also decided to incorporate themes from my daily Bible reading and my devotional into my prayers. It's a way to meditate and really absorb the things I learn.

Last time I wrote about prayer, I made this boisterous declaration that I was done being prayerless. Now, I stand convicted of not even slightly living up to what I said. So rather than make some sweeping declaration, I think the best way to end this is with a prayer.

Lord, teach me to pray. Teach me to pray daily, without ceasing. Let me be a praying man, my family a praying family, and your church a praying church. Amen.