And it came to pass, that, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said unto Him, "Lord, teach us to pray..."  Luke 11:1.

We may find it somewhat surprising that the disciples would make this request.  After all, they had seen Him feed a multitude with a small boy's lunch;  they had seen Him speak a word and the sea instantly became calm;  they had seen Him cleanse lepers, give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and cast out demons.  But we don't find them asking for any of these miraculous powers.  Instead, they wanted to learn how to pray.  They must have sensed that His power came from time spent with His Heavenly Father.

Would we not do well to make this same request?  Teach us to pray, to become more skilled in the school of prayer.  God desires that we pray;  actually, we are told to "pray without ceasing".  Why?  Because all success in our spiritual work is dependent on prayer.  At a time when so many needs confront us (just take a look at our Wednesday evening prayer requests), how sad that we're not spending more time in prayer.  Typically, Wednesday evening prayer services in our churches attract the smallest attendance of all our services.  What does this say to us, or more importantly, what does it say to our Lord?  I believe it says that we don't have our priorities set on the thing He considers most important.

Prayer takes many forms:  petitions, supplications, worship, praise, thanksgiving, and intercession.  I like the definition of intercession as "love on its knees".  We read an amazing statement in Isaiah 59:16  "and (God) wondered that there was no intercessor..." .  This was before many of the prayer promises, encouragements, and commands to pray, such as is recorded for us today.  If God "wondered" then, how much greater must His "wonder" be today;  especially with all the needs surrounding us.  How much could be accomplished for God if each one of us would give ourselves to intercessory prayer.

Why do Christians suffer defeat so often?  Why are we so often discouraged and defeated?  Why are we seeing so few "brought out of darkness into the light" because of our ministry?  Possibly because so few of us are praying.  God in His omnipotence has chosen to work through the prayers of His people, both individually and corporately.  Do we really believe that "Prayer moves the hand that moves the world"?  If we believe this, surely we'll be motivated to pray more.

Real praying is not easy.  Someone has said, "Satan trembles when he sees the weakest Christian on his knees."  This must be true because he will use every tactic possible to keep us from prayer;  he knows that our spiritual battles are won or lost in the place of prayer.  When Satan comes against us in prayer, it's encouraging to recall 1 John 4:4  "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them;  because greater is He that is within you, than he that is in the world."

May we be reminded that our prayers to God accomplish more than our work for God.  Our work for God can accomplish much after we pray, but very little will be accomplished until we pray.  If we understand the priority of prayer and the need to be more skilled in prayer, then hopefully we'll ask as Jesus' disciples did, "Lord, teach us to pray."

Hazel Robertson