The disciples had watched Jesus closely and had noted something. They knew he clearly understood this topic better than them. Jesus practiced it at a much higher level than they had seen in their own lives and the lives of the spiritual leaders around them. The more Jesus lived out this practice the more they became curious. That drove them to ask a question, “Teach us to pray.”
The disciples saw Christ pray powerfully, regularly and at key situations unlike anyone they had seen. He was out early in the morning …to pray. When he had big decisions to make …he prayed all night. He prayed for healing, and it happened. The accumulation of these opened their minds to a larger prayer experience.
A deeper experience of prayer has been experienced and expressed by followers.
- “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” Psalm 8:1 ESV
- Tim Keller writes, “Prayer, then is both awe and intimacy, struggle, and reality. Prayer p5
- Martin Farquhar Tupper pens that prayer is “The slender nerve that moveth the muscle of omnipotence.”
Does our prayer like these statements? Is our prayer life becoming pattered more like Christ’s? How can we begin to experience more fully the Lord’s majesty, or a sense of awe? How do we learn to pour out all our struggles and see answers from our petitions?
There are two steps we need to take.
It starts with us asking Jesus the same request, “Teach me to pray.” It begins with admitting we need help. It is a request the Lord loves to 
hear from his children and one he wants to grant. The second is taking little steps. Little steps make it easy to get started, to repeat and to continue forming a habit, then to mastery.
Here’s a simple way to start. It is spelled out: P, R, A, Y. We praise. We repent. We ask. We yield.
Praise. In this part we cheer God on for who he is and what he’s done. It is focused on his character. He’s faithful, forgiving, wise. It is also about what he has accomplished. He has moved in our lives and in biblical times. He is moving today. All these are good ways to praise him.
Repent. Here we ask for forgiveness for the things we’ve done and have not done. We get specific and name them out. We also forgive others for how they may have sinned against us. See Matthew 18:21-35 & Luke 11:4. As we finish up repentance, I like what Ken Boa writes in his “Face To Face” journal. Confess to the Lord and thank him for his forgiveness.
Ask. Yes, asking really is a part of prayer. We should not be afraid to ask. Prayer is important enough that the last teaching to the disciples tell us to make requests. See John 14:13 and 15:7,16. We are also encouraged to pray about everything as Philippians 4:6 says. Everything includes good stuff, hard stuff, depressing stuff. Consider how well you are petitioning the Lord by thinking about these verses.
Yield. We all encounter yield signs while driving. The point is that we let someone else go before us. It’s the same principle. We let God have the right of way in our life. We stop and let him lead and direct us in his paths. Jesus beautifully modeled this in Gethsemane, “Not my will but your will be done.”
Four words that can guide our prayer life. Here’s how to make it a small step. Take your phone and set a timer for one minute and praise God. Then take another minute to repent. Spend the next minute with asking. Wrap it up with the last minute, yielding. Four minutes of praying, just enough to get practicing it.
Four minutes is do-able and repeatable. Then do it again tomorrow and the next day. As you desire more time before the Lord add a minute to each section. See it become a regular part of your life, then it can become a habit and becoming more proficient conversing with God. Along the way you will get wisps what awe, intimacy, and reality. Just get started by asking God, “Teach me to pray.” I know he will answer you.
Want to dig in a bit more? Here’s a study to help. Or check out this post.
