Prayer is hard.
We want to pray, we set aside time to pray but prayer is often elusive. There is nothing like the thought of prayer to create both instant anxiety and deep longing within us. The result is often a paucity of prayer in our lives. We want to pray but we don't. I listen to many who long for a deeper, richer prayer life but find it incredibly difficult to make that happen. I have struggled much in my own life with this.
The good news is: prayer does not begin with us.
Eugene Peterson began one of his courses on prayer this way:
“The Biblical foundation of prayer is ‘Jesus prays.’ We begin not with a definition, not with an attempt to understand prayer or the nature of prayer but with an action, a piece of narrative, something that we can all get in on, on the ground floor.”
We begin our life of prayer by watching Jesus pray. I like that. So much of our Christian lives are set to the tune of “What am I doing? How do I make this happen? Why can’t I do it better?”
When it comes to prayer, though, we are wise to begin by watching, and listening, paying attention to what is already happening in and around us.
God Prays First
In Romans 8, Paul speaks to the reality that God in Christ is already praying in us. He wants us to know that before we even think about praying, prayer is happening. The Spirit prays. Jesus prays.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans . . . Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Rom 8:26, 34)
There is a continual conversation going on within the Trinity about you! Our struggle to pray is not the end of the story.
What might these prayers be? While the Spirit and Jesus know the deep recesses of your heart and are bringing this to the Father, Scripture gives us some clues as to the type of prayers the Spirit and Jesus are likely praying for us all the time.
“Abba, Father”
One evening during university days, I was sitting in my room doing homework and a song came on causing me to stop and listen. It was called Abba, Father. I remember it so clearly because before the song was over the Lord had shifted my heart to change the direction of my life at the time and go to Bible College. (It’s a long story.)
“Abba, Father,” says Rom 8:15 and Gal 4:6, is the prayer the Spirit is praying for us and in us. This intimate prayer draws us toward our Father and establishes us as his children, grounding us in his love. This prayer un-
locks our longing for God and gives us the energy and motivation to seek God. This prayer rescues us from a mindset of slavery and establishes us in the reality of family. As we watch Jesus pray this prayer and know that it is being prayed in us by the Spirit, God is bringing us home.
This is the “Abba Father” prayer of intimacy that the Spirit prays in us.
“Not My Will but Yours,”
When the Spirit prays “Abba, Father,” this draws us into the Father's love. When Jesus prays, “Not my will but yours,” (Matt 26:39), he gives us the courage and power to live out the Father's love.
Jesus praying this prayer in us gives voice to a prayer we find tremendously difficult to pray, let alone live out. Jesus is offering us a path toward transformation, into the “way, truth, and life” of his love, taking on the fundamental attributes of his way of living in the world – choosing to be humble rather than proud, obedient rather than self-assertive, a servant rather than one being served.
Jesus models a radical path of obedience, borne not from a sense of subservience but from a foundation of love. By taking on flesh, Jesus reveals God's willingness to live in human vulnerability and weakness, choosing to open himself to relational pain and betrayal. By choosing to follow the way of the cross, he reveals God’s loving kenosis – or self-emptying – even to the point of death. As we watch, pray, and live with Jesus, he will lead us into this self-emptying way of love as well. Jesus’ intercession for us offers us the courage to say “Yes” to his way of living. Simon Tugwell says it well,
“Perfect faith is when we are nothing but space for God to be God in us.”[2]
These are the prayers that are already being prayed at the center of your life, an "Abba Father" prayer of intimacy and a "Not my will but yours" prayer of relinquishment. We need both these God-infused prayers within us as we continue to live with Jesus.
You might want to pause, breathe, and trust that these prayers are already making their way to the Father. You are held.
Thanks for reading. Until next Thursday . . .
[1]Curt Thompson, The Soul of Shame. (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP, 2015), 123.
[2]Simon Tugwell. Accessed Sept 24, 2024 at https://imagodeicommunity.ca/weekly-meditations/making-room-for-god/
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