Teach us to Pray

 

Fishing has always been a big part of my childhood, for as long as I can remember. Some of my best memories are from fishing trips with my dad. When I became a teenager and then an adult, I got busy and didn’t go as much. I often told my husband about how much I enjoyed those trips with my dad, how scenic and relaxing they were. After what felt like forever, he finally made time to take the girls and me.

But after a little while on the lake with no fish and nothing happening, he wasn’t very impressed. I told him to be patient and that the fish would come eventually. Still, he gave up after a bit and said he’d rather sit back and watch us fish.

I forgot to warn him that, unlike most other hobbies, fishing requires a lot of patience and perseverance.  We have been accustomed to it because we often spend a good part of the day out on the lake waiting, but my husband, who's never been, was not used to the long wait.  

Patience and perseverance are something I had to personally learn to incorporate into my daily devotional prayer life as well. 

I was accustomed to those quick, short one-way prayers.  But the more I studied the Bible, the more I learned that prayer was never meant to be a quick one-way conversation.  Prayer was intended to be a two-way conversation with God.  We speak to him in our prayers, and then we patiently wait for him to respond when we meditate on his word.  

David, the psalmist, wrote, I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. (Ps. 40:1)

The definition of patience is ‘being tolerant of delay.’ In our devotional prayer life, as we wait on God, we need to be patient with his delays.  This means we may not receive a response immediately.

So this is where we need perseverance.  Perseverance is defined as ‘continued effort despite failure or immediate results’. 

The disciples of Jesus once approached him and said, “Teach us to pray.” In response, Jesus tells them a story about a man who went to his friend’s house late at night, urgently asking for bread. Despite being ignored and rejected at first, the man persisted; he did not give up.  He was found knocking at the door until his friend finally got up and answered his request. (Luke 11) Notice that it was a continuous, unrelenting effort—the man didn’t leave and come back later. Persevering in prayer means patiently remaining in that quiet place of waiting until God responds.