The small group which my family and I attend once discussed the prayer-life of Jesus. After a convicting conversation, several of us confessed a desire to spend more time in prayer—to prioritize prayer like Jesus. Then one group member wondered aloud: “I want to pray more. But honestly, I don’t know how I’d fill the time. I’m not sure what else I could say. I usually get through my prayer list in a matter of minutes. I’d quickly run out of things to pray.” Like many of us, she wished for longer periods of prayer. But, like many of us, she questioned how she’d use the time if she actually had it.
This dilemma is the result of a particular view of prayer. One perspective sees prayer primarily as active asking. Prayer, for many, is an active, not passive, experience. We are physically active: our hands fold, our head bows, our knees bend, our mouth opens and our tongue moves. We are also mentally active: we scan over make supplication regarding a list of needs, requests, issues, and topics. It is difficult for us to envision any model of prayer besides that in which we are the active participant and God is the passive recipient.
Thus, when it comes to increasing the amount of time in prayer, we can only imagine increasing the amount of activity in prayer. We’ll need to find more things to request, more people to intercede for, more topics of conversation to process, and more issues requiring God’s divine devotion.
There are some positive points to this paradigm. For example, a swift scan of the prayers in Psalms, the prayers of Jesus, and the prayers of Paul reveals a plethora of pleas which they regularly prayed but which we rarely pray. It would be a life-shaping (and world-changing) experience to fill greater time praying over the things which concerned these masters of prayer. Hours could be added to our times with God if we simply started praying over lists like the ones found in Scripture.
Yet prayer has another side. God did not envision prayer solely as us actively asking and Him passively receiving. God imagined the flipside of this paradigm. There is a way to approach prayer in which God is active and we are passive (to be continued)…
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