Day 4: Living Prayer

Readings for January 4: Isaiah 63:15-65:7, Psalm 40: 6-10, Luke 2:41-52

How can we stay obedient to God, to His commands, and live in our baptism?  One way that is beneficial is to live a life of prayer.  Prayer is our communication with God.  Through prayer we are able to come to God and talk to Him just as a child comes and talks to their father.  Why?  Because God is our Heavenly Father.  He is the one who made us.  It is He who always hears us.  Jesus teaches us how to pray, saying:

“After this manner therefore pray ye:

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil:

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

He has shown us the model to pray.   Though, sometimes our prayers become vain.  How is that?  I know I personally have said “The Lord’s Prayer” every day since I can consciously remember.  It was a habit, engrained into me.  But there came a point in my life where I said is because it was habit, not because my heart meant it.  As Luther says, I had become cool and joyless in prayer.

“When I feel that I have become cool and joyless in  prayer because of other tasks or thoughts (for the flesh and the devil always impede and obstruct prayer), I take my little Psalter, hurry to my room, or, if it be the day and hour for it, to the church where a congregation is assembled and, as time permits, I say quietly to myself and word-for-word the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and, if I have time, some words of Christ or of Paul, or some psalms, just as a child might do.

“It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Guard yourself carefully against those false, deluding ideas, which tell you, "Wait a little while. I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that." Such thoughts get you away from prayer into other affairs which so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day….

“Finally, mark this, that you must always speak the Amen firmly. Never doubt that God in his mercy will surely hear you and say "yes" to your prayers. Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone, rather think that the whole of Christendom, all devout Christians, are standing there beside you and you are standing among them in a common, united petition which God cannot disdain. Do not leave your prayer without having said or thought, "Very well, God has heard my prayer; this I know as a certainty and a truth." That is what Amen means.”

So when you pray, let your heart mean what your lips are saying and your brain is thinking.

Dear Heavenly Father who reigns enthroned in heaven, I praise and thank You that You have so graciously given me the means and ability to communicate directly to You.  Lord I pray that each and every time I come before you that it be with my whole heart, not just with my mind and mouth out of duty and habit, but instead out of love for You.  Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord and Savior.  Amen.

May the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.  Amen.