I confess that I've often struggled with the whole prayer thing. Not only am I terrible about letting other things crowd out time for prayer, but I also wrestle with the very notion of prayer. Or perhaps my wrestling is with notions of prayer I've picked up over the years.
I've long been troubled when I hear people tell of how God answered their prayer and let them survive or their house be spared when nearly everyone else perished or had their house destroyed. Did no one else pray for the same thing? Was something wrong with their prayers so that God didn't listen to them.
Very often I've heard praying described in ways that sound much like a child asking Santa for presents at Christmas. And at first glance, Jesus seems to be encouraging such a thing when he encourages persistence in prayer saying, "For everyone who asks receives.."
But perhaps it matters that the gospel reading brackets this call for persistence with the Lord's Prayer and with the image of God as a good parent who gives good gifts to children. Good parents don't always give children what they ask for, and indeed, the only gift actually promised by Jesus is the gift of the Holy Spirit. I assume that those who receive the Holy Spirit learn to pray as Jesus does, "Not my will but yours be done."
I suppose there are ways in which I'll always struggle with prayer, but there are two things I feel fairly confident about regarding it. One is that prayer has to do with the reality of God. Prayer, especially the non-Santa Clause sort, is conversation with another, connecting with the Other in whom my life becomes fuller and more complete. The second is that prayer, at least the sort Jesus teachings in his model prayer, forms me in ways that are quite different from the ways of the world around me. Praying for God's rule to govern all the world, that I would be totally dependent on God for my daily needs, and that I would forgive as freely as Jesus does; that is not our culture's model of how to get ahead.
A thought just occurred to me. Perhaps one of the reason I so often let other things crowd out prayer is that I realize deep in my bones that prayer can change me, and some of the changes Jesus asks of me are just a bit scary.
Not my will but yours, Lord.
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