Last month I wrote about my granddaughter who is learning the art of entreaty with her Daddy. As a child, that is so appropriate. And we, as God’s beloved children, learn at first to entreat the Lord, to request the things that are important to us, large or small. But we are to mature further in our prayer life, developing it. For instance, in the Lord’s prayer we see worship, petition for provision and protection, repentance and awe. We not only learn to petition, we learn the prayers of repentance, praise and intercessions. What begins with entreaty, builds. I think of it as moving from “did I ask for what I want today” to “did I ask for what He wants today?”
God loves us to come to Him and accepts our prayers no matter how small the offering, but also wants us to grow in the grace of and devotion to prayer. I have occasionally been corrected by the Lord when my prayers were too self-centered, short-sighted or directive. Because prayers are offerings to the Lord, I am learning to pray in collaboration with His will, not mine.
Ephesians 6:18 tells us to pray in the Spirit and with perseverance. We mature in our persistence of prayer, recognizing that we may need to battle through for a while, learning to stand in prayer as we take hold of his promises. We pray because we know He is faithful and will meet us in our prayers.
Sometimes we “labor earnestly” (Col. 4:12), praying from our knowledge of another’s needs. For instance, Paul writes of continually “mentioning” the Thessalonians in prayer with thanksgiving from a deep knowledge of their constancy of faith, love and hope. But where we don’t have knowledge, we intercede from the Spirit with groanings “too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26).
Colossians 4:2 exhorts us: “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Always threaded through with thanksgiving, we come to understand that He hears every prayer, whether a song, a whisper or a shout. He attends to our prayers!
Didn’t use: “The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer.” F. B. Meyer
