Two weeks ago I was pondering over the question of why Jesus rarely offered intercessory prayer for people. It's still an interesting question that puzzles me, but I'll let that one go. I'm still thinking about prayer, though.
Many people find it hard to pray. My wife taught me to pray - or at least helped me to develop the confidence to pray publicly. My usual bit of instruction to those who wonder how to pray is to just imagine it as a conversation with your best friend who's right in front of you. Which, in a way, is what it is. And just let the thoughts and ideas and words flow. Prayer doesn't have to make use of grandiose and ostentatious and pious language. In fact, it seems to me that those are the kinds of prayers Jesus didn't really approve of. His idea seemed to be "keep it simple."
When this question comes up in our minds, we're in good company. It was after all the disciples themselves who said to Jesus, "Lord, teach us how to pray." And Jesus responded to them with the words that we (more or less) call the Lord's Prayer. I'm not convinced that Jesus actually ever expected his disciples of two thousand (or even two) years later to still be reciting it word for word. I'm not so sure he wanted that. It was, after all, just a model for prayer; it wasn't an actual prayer. But it works, and if you're stuck praying out loud and don't know what to say, it's never a bad idea to say, "and now let us pray as Jesus taught us ..."
A few years ago, I came across something known as the ACTS model for prayer. I've often found that helpful both for personal prayer and for prayer groups. It divides a prayer into four parts:
"A" stands for "Adoration." It's basically talking to God about God, but the benefit is really for us. By thinking and perhaps speaking out loud about the attributes of God (as in, "O God, Creator of heaven and earth ...") we come closer to God, and closer to knowing God.
"C" stands for "Confession." There's so much in our lives that burdens us; so much holding us back; so much that makes us feel separated from God. There are, I suspect, a lot of people carrying around quite a load of guilt. Some of it's heaped on us by others; some of it's probably legitimate. How many of us have never done anything we regret or know we shouldn't have done. "Give it up to the Lord" is evangelical language, but it works as far as guilt is concerned. God is the only one who in any real sense can judge us. And I believe that confessing and forgiving go hand in hand with God. God won't hold your past against you. Real confession - unburdening ourselves and making ourselves right with God - is essential to prayer.
"T" is for "Thanksgiving." Have you noticed that there are a lot of whiny people around? People who complain about all the bad things that happen to them, or who lament all the things they don't have. I've noticed them. Moving from confession to thanksgiving is natural. Once we confess we realize how grateful we are to God, and perhaps we start to see the world in a new light. We start to see its beauty and not its ugliness. We start to see its hopes and dreams and not its darkness and challenges. We're not blinded to the problems, but we are encouraged by suddenly realizing how much we have to be thankful for when all is said and done.
Finally, "S" is for "Supplication." It's a fancy word - which basically means something as simple as praying for others (and maybe even yourself if there's a real need.) Prayer ends with supplication as a way of reminding us that our thoughts and actions and prayers as Christians are always to be directed outward to others. This keeps us oriented as people who don't sit in church for an hour a week as our act of Christian devotion, but as a people who go to church to be inspired to reach out to the world with acts of Christian devotion.
ACTS. It's really a very workable model of prayer, an easy acronym to remember because of the book of the Bible of the same name!
There's no one model that's right or wrong for everyone. I do, though, stand by one thing I said earlier. Praying is talking to God as if God is your best friend. Because that's what God is!
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