Dependence

Give us each day the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation.”
Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.
And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Luke 11:3-13 NLT

Jesus was a man of prayer, and his disciples sought to follow his example, asking him to teach them how to do it. What does this practice of prayer say about Jesus? What does it say about anyone who makes it a part of his or her life?

Prayer shows that a person recognises their need, their inability to make it on their own. It shows that a person does not trust their own wisdom, or their own competence. It shows that they cannot atone for their own sin, they cannot in their own strength forgive their enemies, and they cannot fight against temptation and the devil without the help of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is underpinned by the understanding that we are needy, that we don’t have enough on our own, that we cannot fulfil our obligations without help, that without God we are nothing. Prayer illustrates our desperation for someone and something that is bigger and better and stronger and wiser than ourselves.

In short, prayer illustrates an attitude of dependence.

This, like so much of Jesus’ teaching, goes against the values of the world. The world teaches us to strive for independence. The world praises the self made man, not the recipient of grace. The world recognises and celebrates achievements, intellect, beauty, strength, riches, lifting up the one who possesses these things. We are constantly encouraged to strive after these things. If we reach them we easily become proud of what we have achieved, believing they are a sign of our own brilliance. We do not like to give credit to others. We do not like to give credit to God.

But the attitude that Jesus encouraged his disciples to adopt was an attitude of dependence. The dependent person asks for help. The dependent person prays.

But dependence implies vulnerability. It implies a lack of control. It implies a belief that if God doesn’t come through for us we are lost. The natural human builds walls for protection, because it is a bad world out there. The natural human strives for control, because no one can be trusted. The natural person can trust only himself, not his neighbours, certainly not some invisible God. The natural person does not pray, he strives.

But Jesus showed us a different way. He began every day with a recognition of his need, and a request for wisdom, strength, guidance, in what to say, what to do, where to go. Because he trusted the Father more than his own wisdom. He displayed a dependence on the Father that he encouraged his disciples to adopt. He lived a life of prayer.

If you have noticed that your prayer life has withered away and died, it is probably for one of two reasons. Either you do not believe that you need help (pride). Or you do not believe that God can or will help (unbelief). I am guilty of both of these. Perhaps it is time to return to the truth – that without God we are lost, and that God loves us and wants to help us, to forgive us, to rescue us.

That is to be like Jesus.

Prayer: the best gift

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Luke 11:11-13 NLT

In the first half of Luke chapter 11 Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray. First, in the Lord’s prayer, he instructs them in what they should pray about. Then, in a story about getting food from an uncooperative neighbour, he teaches them howthey should pray, with persistence. Now, in the paragraph above, the focus changes from the disciples to the Father, he speaks of the one his disciples are praying to. The message is simple. God does not deceive us. He will not respond to our requests by giving us something that will cause us harm, like a snake or a scorpion. God will give good things to his children when they ask.

Or more specifically, Jesus said that the Father will give us the Holy Spirit when we ask. Which is interesting because up until this point in Luke’s narrative, Jesus hadn’t talked a whole lot about the Holy Spirit, and certainly the concept of the Holy Spirit was not one that was familiar to his disciples in the way it is familiar to us. The idea of “receiving the Holy Spirit” was not introduced by Jesus until somewhat later, just before his death, and not really experienced in its fullness until the day of Pentecost, after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension. The concepts of “fruit of the Spirit” and “gifts of the Spirit” were not really developed until the apostle Paul wrote about them years after Jesus had ascended into heaven.

Mind you, I’m sure the disciples had some concept of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is mentioned from time to time in the Old Testament, so it was a familiar idea. I think of David’s cry to God when he realised the enormity of his sin in taking Bathsheba as his wife (which required the effective murder of her husband). “Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me,” he cries out in Psalm 51, showing that he had some notion that the Spirit of God was with him or in him. He feared (justifiably perhaps) that God would punish him by withdrawing his Spirit, which in David’s mind meant withdrawing his favour, which David saw as the source of his personal joy and success in life.

However, the idea of asking for the Holy Spirit and receiving it would have been foreign to the disciples. Yet here is Jesus speaking of just that. The context is one of understanding that God wants good things for his children, just as an earthly father wants good things for his. The good thing, in this case, is not a fish or an egg (as good as they might be in certain situations!), but the Holy Spirit. Was Jesus saying that he would not give a fish or an egg to those who ask, but rather the Holy Spirit? I don’t think that was Jesus’ intention here. The bit about the fish and the egg was simply to say that God is not a cruel trickster, but rather a loving Father. That is the nature of God. He sees what we need and he gives it to us.

But Jesus also seems to be saying that the Holy Spirit is the best thing the Father could possibly give to us, and that if we ask for the Spirit, we will receive it. Which is an interesting conclusion to Jesus’ teaching on prayer. He has taught us what we should pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. He has taught us how we should pray, in the story about waking a neighbour with a request for bread, with persistence, never giving up.

He finishes by saying that one thing that we should ask for perhaps more than anything else, is the Holy Spirit. That is the greatest treasure, the source of godly success and prosperity, the source of wisdom and strength. King David knew it, as did all the great men and women of faith down through the ages. According to Jesus’ teaching here, it is ours for the asking.

Prayer: shameless persistence

Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.“And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Luke 11:5-13 NLT

This story is straightforward. Jesus says simply that when we pray we should not give up. We should keep on praying: keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. Persistence will be rewarded with results.

Yet as simple as it sounds, it raises all sorts of questions about God and us. Questions that I find difficult to answer. Firstly, is God like an irritated neighbour, who responds to our requests with a “Don’t bother me… I can’t help you”? Is this the way a God who loves his followers responds when they are in need? Secondly, when we don’t get what we want immediately, is it because God is testing us? How long should we persist? When should we give up? Does God always give us what we ask for, as long as we keep asking long enough? Does God ever say no to our requests?

There are no simple answers to all these questions. But I suspect I am making it more complicated than Jesus intended. I suspect that this story was not meant to teach us about God, but about ourselves, and how we should pray. I don’t think Jesus meant his listeners to use this illustration as a theological foundation for understanding why some prayers don’t get answered, or why it sometimes takes a long time before they are answered, or indeed for understanding the character of God. I suspect that Jesus’ message was simple: a central part of being a disciple is prayer, and when we pray we should not give up just because the initial request seems to fall on deaf ears. Keep praying. Don’t be ashamed of asking repeatedly for the same thing. 

But the reality is that we don’t always get what we ask for and given Jesus’ teaching here, it’s hard not to ask why. Perhaps the answer lies in what we are praying for. This story could be interpreted to say that prayer consists of presenting a wish list to God every day, and then continuing to ask until each of the things on the list has been ticked off. But I suspect this was not Jesus’ intention, because this story comes directly after He taught his disciples the prayer we have come to know as The Lord’s Prayer. The two parts go together. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us what to pray for: the honouring of God, the kingdom of God, our daily bread, the forgiveness of our sins, the deliverance from evil. This story teaches us how to pray: with perseverance, never giving up. Perhaps the reason we don’t always see the answers we want when we pray, even when we are persistent, is that we are praying for the wrong things, things that fall outside of the scope of the prayer he taught his disciples.

Prayer is not like going to the supermarket to get all the things we have on our shopping list. Rather it is an invitation by God to be involved in his purposes for the world. Having said that, the Father knows that we need certain things to live – our “daily bead” – and he urges us to present those needs to him each day, believing that he will provide. If it seems initially that God doesn’t hear us, because he does not immediately provide, he urges us to be persistent, shamelessly persistent, to use the words in the above translation. Keep asking, and he will respond.

But our prayer life is about more than our own personal daily needs. It is about entering into God’s desire and purpose for the world, that his name would be honoured, that his kingdom would be established, that we would be reconciled to God and to each other, that we would in his strength triumph over the evil within and the evil without. It is a glorious thing, so much more than just our small desires.

Jesus included this story in his teaching about prayer because he knew that, like me, so many of us give up too easily. He challenges us to get his prayer priorities embedded into our hearts and minds, and then to keep going, to never give up. If we pray according to his will I believe we will see answers. Continuous daily prayer for a lifetime is hard. But it is a habit that is worth developing and maintaining if we want to be disciples of Jesus and see his kingdom come.

Prayer: as we forgive

“Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us…

Luke 11:2-4 NLT

Jesus instructs us to ask our Father for forgiveness. We need this to become part of the daily routine of our interaction with our Heavenly Father. But the next part of the request seems to add a condition to our forgiveness. Why does Jesus want us to say this – as we forgive those who sin against us? We long for forgiveness, to be made clean, to be able to start again, to turn over a new leaf. But must our forgiveness be conditional on our forgiving?

There are two reasons I think Jesus includes this phrase into the prayer he taught his disciples to pray. The first is to remind us that our forgiveness is, indeed, conditional. Not that we can earn our forgiveness by our good deeds, but that we cannot expect undeserved favour – grace that is – if we refuse to forgive. Jesus taught about this in other places. Including it in this daily prayer is his way of reminding us of just how important this condition is. Our forgiveness of others who have “sinned against us” is part of his divine order for creating a better world. There appear to be three requirements for us to be forgiven: we need to acknowledge our need, we need to ask for forgiveness, and we need to forgive others. All three are necessary.

The opposite of forgiveness is unforgiveness, which is a sin that grips the world. As much as many of us find it difficult to admit our own sin, we on the other hand find it easy to identify the sin in others, especially when that sin is directed toward us. Unforgiveness leads to never ending conflict. Forgiveness is the only thing that breaks the cycle of sin leading to punishment and revenge, which creates a self perpetuating process.

The second reason that Jesus instructs us to include this phrase in our prayers is because it reminds us that just as our Father desperately wants a relationship with us, he also desperately wants us to live in the joy of relationship with each other. Unforgiveness destroys any hope of such a relationship.

We all like to think that if we love each other there will be no need for forgiveness. But anyone who has lived in close relationship with another human being knows that eventually we feel wronged, eventually we will be offended, hurt, disappointed, in the other. Unless we are willing to forgive, these things will eventually lead to the breakdown in our relationship.

The other day someone told me about a woman who had been wronged by her father when she was a child. This woman is now old herself and her father has been dead many years. She had said that she would never forgive her father: “I can never forgive him for what he did to me, how he treated me.” We can only imagine what sins he may have committed against her. She had been scarred for life and one could feel only sadness and compassion for her. Yet the woman she had become was not only the result of what her father had done, but also of how she had responded. She had decided to live in unforgiveness. This had affected her whole life, the very essence of who she was, and marked her ongoing relationships with others. She had become a bitter old woman.

It is easy to understand her reaction. After all, it was her father who had committed the sin, so why should he be let off? Justice demands that he be punished, not forgiven. But he is long dead and gone. Her unforgiveness of him is to this day having no effect on him, only on her. He may be punished for his sin in eternity. But she is suffering in the here and now. For she has become gripped by, possessed by, unforgiveness. The result is that her own suffering continues. The only way she can be free from that is to forgive him, the one thing she says she can never do.

We live in a world where loneliness is rampant. In the western world at least, more and more people live alone. More and more marriages end in divorce. More and more parents are alienated from their children. We seem to find it harder and harder to live together with other human beings. We are all desperate to be loved, but we find it harder and harder to love. The reason for all this is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness traps us in our hurt, imprisoned by the offense we feel, nursing our grievances toward others.

When Jesus said we need to forgive one another he was trying to help us understand what is needed for a happy life, a life of deep and satisfying relationships. The willingness and ability to forgive is the key to that. Unless we are willing to forgive those who have sinned against us, as unjust as that might seem, we will never be free to experience true love and true joy.

Prayer: Forgive us

“Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins…

‭‭Luke‬ ‭11:2-4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Forgiveness lies at the very centre of the message of Jesus. It presupposes that we need forgiveness, something that human beings often struggle to accept or acknowledge. When we are confronted with our own failure, or worse, our own evil, we are quick to defend ourselves: it is not my fault, it is not that bad, I have not done or said or thought anything bad, at least not any worse than anyone else, it’s only natural, it doesn’t hurt anyone therefore it can’t be that bad, etc etc, our excuses are endless.

But Jesus implies by his teaching that actually we are that bad. Deep down we suspect he is right, that we are indeed bad. We may use different words, like failure – religious people call it sin – but it is the same thing. We feel guilt and shame because we don’t measure up, we are not good enough, we make mistakes, or even worse, we are mistakes. To address this last thing first: in Jesus’ eyes we are never mistakes. That is a lie from the devil, a deception that can destroy us if we choose to believe it. Every one of us is God’s intentional creation, made by him for his pleasure and our joy, and he loves us enough to die for us. But Jesus clearly and openly says that we make mistakes, that we do wrong, and that our sin, as well as burdening us with guilt and shame, separates us from God. But he has a simple solution: he says we should ask God to forgive us… every day!

Why is this so important? For Jesus it was important because he knew that our sin is the thing that stands between us and God, and Jesus’ whole mission in life was to break down that barrier. This reflects the heart of God to know his children, to have a relationship with those he created. Any one of us who is a parent knows this longing, this intense desire to have a rich and meaningful relationship with our children. Our Heavenly Father is the same, but more so. He is hurt by our sin, he grieves over our sin, he gets angry about our sin. But he has also made a way to nullify our sin and it’s consequences, and to bridge the gap between us and him.

The way, of course, is Jesus, his death on the cross to pay the price of our sin. But the death of Jesus does nothing for us until we come to the Father in humility, acknowledging our sin, and asking for forgiveness. It is true that Jesus died to save every one of us from our sin, but that does not mean every one of us will be saved. Only those who acknowledge their sin, and actually ask for forgiveness, will be forgiven. It might sound like a very small requirement, but it is surprising how hard we find it sometimes to acknowledge there is anything wrong with us and that we need forgiveness. We would rather justify ourselves than be forgiven. We are too proud to accept help freely given. We would rather be self made men than the recipients of undeserved favor.

But we can’t do it ourselves. We can never be good enough. If we are going to have a relationship with God, the only way it will work is through his forgiveness. Praying this prayer every day, “forgive us our sins,” is the first step toward reconciliation with God, and thus the first step toward an ongoing relationship with the creator of the universe that will bring deep joy to our existence on this planet.

Prayer: our daily bread

This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need…

Luke 11:2-3

When we are born we are totally dependent. We have no ability to care for ourselves, in fact no ability to survive. We are, in as sense, desperate. If someone else does not give us what we need and take care of us, we will die. But as we grow and mature that changes. The goal of parents everywhere is to make their children independent, able to survive on their own in what is often a hostile world. Is that God’s desire for us?

Jesus says we should pray each day for the food we need. If God is our Father, does he not try to grow us toward independence? It would seem not. Otherwise, why would Jesus say that this particular phrase should be part of our daily prayers? He seems to want us to daily remember that we are dependent on him for the very food we need, in other words, the basic requirements for our existence.

This sense of dependence is a central part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. It is much easier to maintain if we have a sense of our need. One of the problems with wealth is that it leads to a sense of independence. When we are wealthy it is easy for us to forget God, because we believe that we don’t need him. When we are wealthy it is easy for us to think that our wealth is thanks to our own efforts, our own cleverness, our own achievement. It is easy for us to forget to pray, “Give us each day the food we need,” because we already have the food we need for each day and we don’t need to ask anyone, including God, for it.

I believe that this line in the Lord’s prayer is extremely important because it reminds us of our utter dependence on God. We may be rich today, but tomorrow we may be poor. We may have all we need today, but tomorrow we may have nothing. The challenge is to remain dependent, and daily acknowledge that no matter what we have or don’t have, we are completely dependent on God. Unless he provides we will die, whether we have an empty cupboard or a full one, whether we have a big house or no house.

But this petition is also important because it is the means by which we see God’s provision in our lives. Just as it is easy to believe that our riches are thanks to our own efforts and wisdom, we can easily fall into the trap of believing that if we are not wealthy it is a sign of our own failure, lack of wisdom, wrong decisions. Both beliefs are equally misleading. The reasons we find ourselves where we are in life are many and varied, and everything that happens in our life is not a result of our own actions. Much could be put down to luck – good or bad. Much can be put down to circumstances – being in the right place at the right time, knowing the right people. Our actions do obviously affect what happens to us, but sometimes good people suffer, and bad people prosper. Life is not straightforward.

In the midst of that reality Jesus encourages us to pray that the Father will meet our daily needs. Whether we are wealthy in the eyes of the world, or poor, he challenges us to the same. For the wealthy it is a challenge to understand that we are really poor and need God desperately, otherwise we will die. For the poor it is a challenge to believe that God will provide all we need, and that in him we are in fact rich.

Prayer: a holy name

‘Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon.’

Luke 11:2

It would be good if every prayer we prayed started with these words, or words to that effect. For followers of Jesus, these two things should be the central focus of our lives. But why? And what does Jesus mean by these things?

A lot is written about the “name of God” in the Bible. It is a huge subject that could occupy a whole book, and indeed many books have been written about the “name of God.” We live in a world where the name of God is treated lightly. It is spoken like an exclamation mark, it has become little more than punctuation in much modern speech. Yet one of the Ten Commandments (which are rather unpopular these days) says clearly, “do not take the name of the Lord in vain.” Whatever does that mean? I believe it means simply that we should treat the name of God with reverence, rather than using it simply as a figure of speech.

But what is God’s name? Reading the Old Testament it becomes clear that the answer to this is mysterious. God calls himself “I AM”. The Israelites gave God an un-pronounceable vowel-less name – YHWH – which in modern language we often change to the pronounceable “Yahweh.” Or Jehovah. But the idea that the Old Testament seems to be trying to get across is that God’s name is a mystery, impossible to understand in its fullness, a name that is so sacred, so holy, that it should barely be spoken, except with the most profound awe and respect.

Such concepts are hard for modern people. Even we who call ourselves Christians like to think of God as our father and as our friend, and there is good biblical precedent for that. But we lose something when we forget the mystery, the ineffability, the bigness, the awesomeness, of God. We lose so much when we allow God’s name to become little more than a punctuation mark or an exclamation mark. Even worse if we use “God” as a swear word.

There are many other names for God in the Old Testament: Elohim (God most powerful), Abba (father), El Elyon (most high), El Roi (all seeing), El Shaddai (almighty), Jehovah Jireh (my provider), Jehovah Nissi (my banner), Jehovah Rapha (my healer), Jehovah Shalom (my peace) are some that can be found. All of them are expressions of the nature and character of God. Christians believe that Jesus was the ultimate expression of God’s nature and character, that he embodied all of these names and so much more, and that by looking at Jesus we see the most comprehensible picture of who God is. So in some ways the name of God is Jesus.

However we think of the name of God, this prayer that Jesus taught his disciples indicates that this name is to be the absolute centre of our lives. Number one, he said, pray this: “Father, may your name be kept holy!” When I was a child I learnt it like this, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name!” Do we treat the name of God with such respect? Is his name the thing that occupies the highest place in our thoughts? Do we long to see the name of God recognised, honoured, respected, for everything that it represents about our Creator and Father? Are we more concerned in this life with “making a name” for God, or making a name for ourselves? Are we willing to say, like John the Baptist, “he must increase, but I must decrease”?

Let’s start praying that way. Let’s start living that way. That is what Jesus told us we should do.

Prayer priorities

“Jesus said, “This is how you should pray: “Father, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation. ””

‭‭Luke‬ ‭11:2-4‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Two things stand out from this short prayer that Jesus taught his disciples: the first is what we should pray for, and the second is the order of importance of these things. Notice God comes first, and we come second. How easy it is for us, overwhelmed by our own needs and desires, to reverse this order, even to forget God altogether. God becomes simply our provider, and we become central to our universe.

The model Jesus gives reverses this order, making him central to our prayers: the centre of our affections, our admiration, our reverence, our hearts and minds. It is the same order as Jesus reinforced when he spoke of the formula for “inheriting” eternal life: Love the Lord your God with everything you are, and love your neighbour as yourself. And remember that other sermon of Jesus, the “sermon on the mount?” Seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you…

Is Jesus saying we should we pray for God? We usually think of praying to God, but praying for God? Yet that is what he seems to be saying. Does God, our Father, need our prayers? Perhaps not. After all, he is God, and does not need us to ensure that his name is honoured, that his kingdom is established. He is quite capable of achieving these ends without our prayers.

So why does Jesus instruct his followers to make this the first priority of their prayers? Surely it is simply because our prayers are not so much for God’s sake, so he will know what to do (he knows what we need before we ask for it), as for our sake, that we will know what to do, where to focus our efforts in this life. The Lord’s Prayer indicates that the number one focus of our lives must always be God and his kingdom. Is that true for me, is it true for you? By praying as Jesus taught us we constantly re-centre our lives in the same place.

Of course, the Lord’s Prayer does not end there. It is not just praying for the honour of God’s name and the establishment of his kingdom. It is also praying for ourselves – for what we need, and for freedom from the price of our sinfulness, and for strength to face the temptations of every day. In addition we are to pray for our relationships with others – that we would forgive those who sin against us. It may be a short prayer, but it is comprehensive.

The order of priority in this prayer is simple: God and his kingdom first, our needs and our problems second, and our relationships with others last. Another expression I remember sometimes is the pathway to JOY: “Jesus first, Yourself last, Others in between.” Not quite the same order as the Lord’s prayer, perhaps, but perhaps the point of that acronym – JOY – is not quite the same as the pattern for prayer. And God and his kingdom is still first, in the person of Jesus. In any case, the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, and this is the outline he gave them. It may not be the natural order of priorities in our minds, but it is God’s order, and I believe it is helpful for us to follow the same pattern.

Learning to pray

Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

Luke 11:1 NLT

An important part of the task Jesus has given us is to pray. How do we learn to pray? I suppose we learn in the same way as we learn many things: by watching others doing it. Here in this account, Luke simply says Jesus “was in a certain place praying.” The disciples saw him and found themselves wondering. What is he saying? He must have been praying silently. Or perhaps he was just out of earshot. But something about his posture or appearance told them he was at prayer, and the disciples wanted to know what that entailed for him, because they thought maybe they should be doing the same thing.

Why did the disciples ask to be taught to pray? I imagine it was because they perceived that it was important to Jesus. They must have seen that he was often praying. They must have seen that it made a difference. That Jesus drew strength from the process. Perhaps they perceived that it brought calm to Jesus when he was stressed. Perhaps they could see that it was after praying that Jesus made decisions about their next move. Perhaps they could see how times of prayer brought clarity and wisdom and even supernatural power to the words and actions of Jesus that followed such times.

Whatever it was, it seems that they could see that prayer was central to Jesus’ life, and that it made a difference, to Jesus himself, but also to their circumstances and to themselves. When Jesus prayed, his strength increased, but they also felt better, had greater peace, and confidence, and joy. They could see it was vital to his continued ministry, and to their continued well being, the disciples were often unsure, confused, worried, afraid. But I suspect that when Jesus prayed their doubt and fear was replaced by faith and courage. For each one of them it had been a big decision to follow Jesus, and sometimes they must have wondered whatever they had done. Perhaps when they saw Jesus praying, they were reassured. Despite their misgivings, seeing him pray helped them believe that everything would be alright.

The result? They too wanted to be able to pray like Jesus. Just as they wanted to be able to speak like him, to heal and to cast out demons the way he did. They had decided to follow him, and they were continually amazed at what he was doing, what he said, how he impacted the world around him. They wanted to be like him. And they were beginning to realise that prayer was the source of his strength, his wisdom, his understanding, his love.

So they asked him to teach them how to pray. Perhaps then they too would have the joy and the strength and the wisdom that he had. Perhaps then they too would know what to do, where to go, what to say, each day, as they continued the journey on which they had embarked. Perhaps they would begin to understand what this new life they had chosen was all about.

The same is true for each one of us. We have heard the words of Jesus and read about his actions. We see what a difference they make. We long to be like him and to be able to impact the world and the people around us in the way he did. But have we realised what the disciples did, that his strength, his influence, his kindness and compassion, his wisdom and understanding, came from his times of prayer? The first disciples came to him to ask him to teach them how to pray. We can come to him with the same request.

Prayer in an age of distraction

The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit. These were his instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. Now go, and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. Don’t take any money with you, nor a traveler’s bag, nor an extra pair of sandals. And don’t stop to greet anyone on the road.

Luke 10:1-4 NLT

Being a missionary has come to mean, in many of our churches, crossing geographical, language and cultural barriers to share the message of Jesus. There is a lot of biblical justification for this understanding. However, the word mission means simply to be sent, and in Luke 9 and 10 we see the very first recorded commands by Jesus to his disciples to “Go!” and there is no indication here of crossing any barriers except those of location and human resistance to strangers. Jesus recognises straight away that the road ahead for disciples who choose to accept his mission is not going to be easy. There will be problems. This passage makes reference to a number of those. 

First, he says there will not be enough of them for the task. His response? Pray for more workers! Second, there will be opposition. “Remember,” he says, “I am sending you out as lambs among wolves.” There will be “wolves” who want to eat them up! “Don’t expect everyone to welcome you with open arms. Don’t be naive,” he seems to be saying, “Be aware.” Third, he recognises that they will need stuff for daily life: money, a bag, an extra pair of shoes. His advice with regards to these practical needs? Don’t worry about them! These things you can do without! 

It is this third area of advice that I struggle with. It sounds outright irresponsible. Does he seriously mean that we should set out on his mission with nothing except the clothes we are standing up in? Should we take everything Jesus says literally? What is Jesus saying? I think it is simply this: “Depend on me, and depend on the kindness of strangers.” In fact, in the next paragraph of the narrative (not quoted above, but its all there in the Bible), Jesus seems to be saying that we can expect the kindness of strangers – people who know nothing of us or our message yet who will extend their hospitality to us. This is a bit counterintuitive, but Jesus says, “Depend on it.”

So his instructions to us as we go out on his mission are as much about our attitudes and expectations, as about what to do. What do I mean by that?

• Expect that there will be more work to do than you can manage.Ask God for helpers. He exhorts us to an attitude of dependence, not independence: dependence on God and on other Christians. 
• Expect that there will be opposition. Ask God for protection. Do the work with an understanding that you are in a spiritual battle and there are forces in the world which would willingly destroy you and everything you are trying to do. You will be vulnerable. Ask for protection. 
• Expect that no matter how well you prepare, you will come to the end of your resources, and then you will be forced to rely on God and strangers. Ask God for provision. It is when you have nothing that you will see God provide, and he will do it in the most unexpected way, from the most unexpected sources.

 Our attitude should be one of dependence, recognising our vulnerability in the face of danger and necessity. And our response to the challenges should be to pray. Ask for help, from God, from fellow Christians, from strangers. Ask for protection from the enemy, realising how real and how active he is. Prayer is really just an expression of dependence. It is a recognition that we cannot do it on our own, that we need God, that we need other believers, even that we need the kindness of strangers. So prayer is a task that expresses an attitude. And it is that attitude that is most important to the Father, because it recognises the true order of things, and becomes an expression of worship.

Finally, in this paragraph, Jesus impresses on his disciples the urgency of the mission. At least that is how I read it. “Don’t stop to greet anyone on the road.” You have work to do. Get on with it. Don’t get distracted. We live in the age of distraction, which has been called the Information Age, and which is the result of technology. Is technology wrong? Not at all. But we need to listen to Jesus’s command to his first disciples and apply it to our own age. Keep technology in its place – whether it be the computer, the smart phone, the TV, or even the car or the electric light. Our technology makes it possible for us to be busy every moment of every day, and in this age more than any before it we need the discipline to be able to say no to things that demand our constant attention, but which are unnecessary for the task. “Don’t be distracted, because if you are you will never get anywhere, and you will never have time to pray.” How relevant this is for me. 

Jesus’ advice may have been given in a particular historical and cultural context, but it is just as good advice for us modern disciples.