Teach Me to Pray

“Prepare your minds for action.”
1 Peter1:13

After every meal, I love to see my grandson sign and raise his arms and say, “Thank you, Jesus!” He is learning to pray.

“It’s a risky thing to pray and the danger is that our very prayers get between God and us. The great thing is not to pray but to go directly to God. There is no such thing as a kind of prayer in which you do absolutely nothing. If you are doing nothing you are not praying. Prayer is the movement of trust, of gratitude, of adoration, or of sorrow, that places us before God, seeing both Him and ourselves in the light of His infinite truth, and moves us to ask Him for the mercy , the spiritual strength, the material help that we all need.

All true prayer somehow confesses our absolute dependence on the Lord of life and death. It is, therefore, a deep and vital contact with Him whom we know not only as Lord but as Father. It is when we pray truly that we really are. Our being is brought to a high perfection by this.” – Thomas Merton

I prayed in my 20’s that God would make me usable for his service and that I might know Him more. I prayed in my 30’s and 40’s that God would teach me and make me a student of the word of God. In my 50’s my prayer is that I might learn to go deeper and more truthfully into prayer with God my Father. Circumstances have demanded that I do just that, and yet there is always a struggle. I send prayers to God throughout each day, I depend upon His word for my every breath, and yet, I hold back from long time alone with God. God, teach to me pray, show me what holds me back. If it is sin then I repent. If it is fear, then I will trust. If it is pride, then break me Lord. I want to be with You.

I pray that this is your prayer as well. “Holy spirit, come and teach us to pray.”

Hannah’s first tentative steps.