Teach us to pray .....

Some years ago, when I thought I knew a little about prayer, a very well-known prophetic man from overseas gave me a word "The Lord is going to teach you how to pray".  It took me by surprise and required some processing, but now with the wisdom of hindsight I realise it was one of the more significant words I've ever received.  I had led prayer meetings and taught on prayer here and overseas, prayed through this nation a couple of times, ministered constantly in prayer, and had begun to think I knew a thing or two.  Of even more concern was the fact that others had begun to think that too and had put me in a box.  A whole lot had become about works and special ability!

The outworking of that particular word has taken me down some strange paths and involved some very profound lessons.  Currently I am in the happy place of knowing how greatly prayer is about God and there is not a whole lot I actually need to know except Him. The process has made it constantly simpler day by day and year by year.  The bottom line seems to be that I just need to know that God is Who He says He is, and agree with what He says.

I think of John 15 as one of the greatest foundations to the life that is prayer as the Lord asks us to remain in Him and He in us, all summed up in John 15:16 & 17 You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last.  THEN the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  This is my command : Love each other.  If we abide in Love Himself we are much more likely to pray in accordance with what is in His heart!

The Message puts it this way: But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon.

A little passage from Thomas Merton's journal of November 13, 1965 summed it all up for me the other day - such simplicity and beauty.

"This morning when I was saying Prime under the pine trees at the front of the hermitage, I watched a wounded deer limping along in the field, one leg incapacitated.  I was terribly sad at this and began weeping bitterly.  Then something quite extraordinary happened.  I will never forget standing there weeping and looking at the deer standing still looking at me questioningly for a long time, a minute or so.  The deer bounded off without any sign of trouble."