“This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I’ve revealed to you. Ask in my name, according to my will, and he’ll most certainly give it to you. Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks! – John 16:23b-24 (The Message)
In last week’s devotion, I wrote about the value of using the Lord’s Prayer as part of our everyday devotional life, as a way of taking a moment out of a busy day. Building on that, I thought it might be worthwhile to take the next few weeks to think a bit more about the Lord’s Prayer. In particular the occasional reminder of what Martin Luther thought about prayer and particularly about the Lord’s Prayer is helpful. Having a clearer sense of what we are doing when we pray and why we use the Lord’s Prayer can make the experience of praying it more meaningful. This week I want to focus on Martin Luther’s understanding of how to pray and why to use the Lord’s Prayer regularly in our prayers.
In a sermon on John16:23-30 (5th Sunday after Easter, 1525), Luther laid out five characteristics of true prayer. The five are: God’s promise, faith, naming something definite, asking, and doing it in the name of Christ. All prayer flows from these five elements. Each of the elements is important. We are bold enough to speak to God because in this passage Jesus promises that we are able to do it. All we need to do to be ready to pray is trust that promise. In trusting that promise, we can recognize that we have faith in Jesus. It may not be as strong of a sense of faith as we would like, but the desire to pray itself is testimony that we have some degree of faith, and a little faith can do wonders.
The third element of prayer is praying about something definite. Name what is going on in your life or what is bothering you. Where do you wish you could see God more clearly? Focus on those situations. This leads to the fourth element: desiring God’s response. In other words, ask for God to meet your needs. We are not to prescribe how God is to meet our needs, though. We are to trust that God understands better than we could what the right response is. This trusting God’s response also helps to remind us that what we are truly asking for is that God’s will be done; as such what we ask for will then be in line with the love of God that we know in Jesus rather than simply for selfish gain. To reinforce this, the fifth element is that we pray in Christ’s name. We do this because Jesus tells us to, and because it re-centers us on Jesus’ life in shaping our prayers.
Prayer is not ultimately about the words we speak, though. It is about our heart trusting in God. The spoken element is a necessary practice to help us focus our minds, but it is not where true prayer takes place. True prayer happens inwardly, in the heart. True prayer is trust that God hears us and will answer. The power of prayer is in our trust, in our faith, and in Christ. It is not in our words. The form that we use does not matter, provided that our heart is on these five elements.
Yet Luther also knows that it is easier for most of us to say the right words outwardly then it is to have true inward prayer. For this reason, he thinks that the Lord’s Prayer is the best model for prayer. In it, Jesus shows us everything that we need to ask for. If we ask for the things that
Jesus teaches in the Lord’s Prayer, there is nothing else in the world that we need to ask for. And in the Lord’s Prayer, we have Jesus’ promise that these prayers will be heard.