Making Our Last Resort the First Resort
I was recently talking to a friend who is a preaching minister. For several months he had faced an immovable impediment in his ministry. One person was frustrating every move he made to pursue the path he believed God wanted his congregation to take. He and other leaders had discerned bold visions for the church’s future, but all plans were on pause because of this single stubborn person. My friend tried everything to pass the impasse. He sought to reason with the man. Then, he asked his mentors what to say and do. And, he sent other church leaders to speak to the individual. But all this work produced no progress.
Finally, one day, a colleague from another congregation asked my friend, “Have you fasted and prayed about this? If I were you, that’s what I would do. Fast and pray.” My friend had not. That week he began. He decided to spend each Thursday fasting and praying.
Four weeks later, that intractable individual holding everything up and holding everyone hostage took a job offer in another state.
Prayer had been my friend’s last resort. It should have been his first resort. Because, in the end, it was his only resort.
Jesus makes a similar case in his Sermon on the Mount. In Matt. 6:1-18 Jesus speaks specifically about piety, about growing more intimate with the Father. Jesus draws attention to three practices of piety: giving, praying, and fasting. Of the three, Jesus shows prayer to be the most indispensable.
First, Jesus spends greater time speaking on prayer than on the other two practices which are mentioned in his section on piety. Giving receives three verses of Jesus’ speech. Fasting similarly receives three verses. But prayer receives eleven verses. Jesus devotes nearly four times the space to speaking on prayer as he does highlighting these other practices.
Second, when we consider that fasting (Matt. 6:16-18) by its very nature centers on prayer, two-thirds of Jesus’ piety presentation contain instruction and inspiration regarding prayer. Of the eighteen verses in this message on spirituality, fourteen focus on prayer.
Third, when Jesus speaks of fasting and of giving, he identifies mistakes which other Jewish spiritual leaders are making. But in his section on supplication, Jesus additionally identifies mistakes which Gentile spiritual leaders are making. Jesus is so intent on ensuring that we experience prayer as originally intended that he doubles his efforts to reveal flawed approaches to it. That is, Jesus spends twice as long clarifying wrong approaches to prayer as he does clarifying wrong approaches to giving or to fasting.
Finally, only in the portion on prayer does Jesus give us a “formula.” Only here does Jesus spell out in detail exactly how to do prayer. It’s here we find the “Lord’s Prayer.” Though never intended as something which must be said word-for-word, its words nonetheless have become the pathway to richer prayer for centuries. Countless Christians have grown more in tune with the Father and more in line with his will through the words of this prayer than any other prayer. No other section in Jesus’ piety presentation contains this level of detailed instruction.
If we wish to dive deeper into the spiritual life, prayer must never be our last resort. It must always be our first resort.
Ready Made Prayers
And Jesus’ model-prayer introduces something which Mark Thibodeaux calls “ready-made prayers.”[i] Ready-made prayers are those which someone else has authored for us. We pray using someone else’s words rather than our own. And by praying them, we are led into experiences we may have never reached by relying solely on our own prayer-words.
Scripture is full of these ready-made prayers. In fact, Adele Calhoun writes that “In the early centuries of the church, believers were taught to pray the Scriptures. Since the Bible is divinely inspired, they believed that praying Scripture deeply connected them to the mind and heart of God. Furthermore, as Scripture was repeatedly prayed, it became memorized. This was a wonderful benefit for those who were illiterate. It also meant that memorized Scripture could lead them to pray at any hour of the day or night.”[ii] For centuries Christians have relied heavily on the ready-made prayers found in Scripture.
In upcoming posts, we’ll explore three sources of these “pre-packaged” prayers in the Bible: the Psalms, Jesus’ prayers, and the prayers and writings of Paul.
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[i] Mark Thibodeaux, Armchair Mystic (Saint Anthony Messenger Press, 2001).
[ii] Adele Calhoun Spiritual Disciplines Handbook (IVP Books, 2005), 246.
