Teach Me To Pray

I PRAYED FOR THIS CHILD AND THE LORD HAS GRANTED ME WHAT I ASKED OF HIM. 1 Samuel 1.17.

Often when we have our family prayer, I pray for our needs and remember the needy and distressed people of God. As I do so, I become acutely conscious also of all the millions of needy and desperate in our world, who do not know the Lord. Hence, I pray to the Lord to remember them too. They also pray, but to gods whom they do not know and who cannot help!

Where do their prayers go? God said, “Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any” (Isa 44.8). I argue with myself and set my mind at ease by hoping that the prayers of all people ‘addressed to any god’ will find their way to the throne of our LORD GOD ALMIGHTY who alone hears prayers! How else can you explain the answers to the prayers to the pagan gods who have no existence? The psalmist once said to the Lord, “O you who hear prayer, to you all men will come” (Psa 65.2). Sadly these people go back to their temple-gods to offer ‘thanksgiving!’ I pray that somehow God would let these people know that HE ALONE IS GOD!

“The Lord granted me what I asked of Him!”, said Hannah. Poor old Jabez ‘who was the name-sake’ of pain, cried out to the God of Israel. The Lord granted his request (1 Chr 4.10) I am thrilled to hear such testimonies from mouths of God’s needy and desperate people!

Dear believer, are you searching for the secret of answered prayers? Let us learn from Hannah the secret of prayer that lets God grant our requests. She went through the school of prayer unlike us who depend on teaching, preaching, and seminars! Necessity, desperateness and urgency are the mother of all secrets of prayer! You will never learn to pray as you ought to unless you too are needy. That is why adversity is a greater teacher in the school of prayer than prosperity. We do not have to invite trouble. But we must use every trial to soar higher in prayer and petition, towards the throne of grace.

1) Hannah fasted. The very first thing we learn from Hannah is that she couldn’t eat or enjoy food, for her need was too great. Fasting reveals the intensity of our need. 2) She cried to God. Crying out to God demonstrates the degree of distress of our soul. 3) She groaned in her spirit. ‘The inward groaning by the Spirit that cannot be uttered’ contrasts greatly with loud prayers and shouts we are accustomed to today. Ignorantly we assume that the louder the prayer, the more attentive God will be! God who spoke to Elijah in the ‘still small voice’ listened to Hannah’s unuttered pleadings.

Notice that all the three essentials of Hannah’s prayer were “God-ward!” I had the rare privilege to learn these lessons as a boy from my grandfather. He was just an ordinary school teacher. But he had a testimony of being a man great in faith and prayer! Our folly has been and still is that WE DO NOT PRAY ENOUGH! DEAR BELIEVER, JUST PRAY! KEEP ON PRAYING. PRAY FOR EVERYTHING!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, teach me ‘to pray’ not ‘how to pray’ - for myself and all others! When the need is great, Lord teach me to pray like Hannah, AND YOURSELF! Amen.