Luke 11:1-4
Prayer Isn't Complicated

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

He said to them, "When you pray, say:
    " 'Father,
    hallowed be your name,
    your kingdom come.
    Give us each day our daily bread.
    Forgive us our sins,
        for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
    And lead us not into temptation.' "

New International Version

I don't think I have anything original I can write about this passage. You and I have heard many wonderful sermons and read many insightful articles about this teaching we call the "Lord's Prayer", and it is possible that you, like me, recite this prayer every Sunday as part of congregational worship. It is a simple, elegant, and profound example of prayer given to us by our Lord.

I know, however, that I need to be reminded of the simplicity of prayer in the way Jesus taught us to pray. Living in first century Israel, His disciples had been intimidated by the complex rituals of prayer developed over the centuries by their religious leaders. They, like most seekers of the day, longed for a rabbi that could help them master the intricacies of what they thought God expected of them, so they asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

I'm certain they were surprised when Jesus gave them a simple prayer with a very few words. Luke's version of the prayer is a little simpler than Matthew's version, and the version I recite in church is more complicated still. While I am certain that God takes pleasure in a congregation joining to speak the Lord's Prayer together, in any version, God wants us to use this lesson for much more than a beautiful liturgy. The power isn't in this proper sequence of words, but in the basic concepts.

Let's look more closely at the seven lines above. Half the prayer is about God! Most of the words in my prayers, both the ones I pray myself and the ones where I lead a group prayer, are about people, not about God.

Only half of this prayer, then, is about us; of that half, only one third is about physical needs, and the other two thirds about spiritual needs. I get this wrong, too. I will frequently pray for physical healing for others and for guidance as they deal with difficult work or family circumstances. While that is good, the Lord's Prayer reminds me that I am praying for the visible tip of the "iceberg", not the much larger part that is hidden under the water. So often, Jesus first healed someone by forgiving their sins, then healed their physical ailment as validation of the greater healing that had occurred outside of visual comprehension.

He even worked into the example prayer a command that we forgive others. I almost never intend for my prayers to come back at me that way! God has to interrupt my prayers to remind me of what I should do. The Lord's Prayer teaches us in this way that prayer is to be a dialog, where we are to be attentive to God's nudges, just as we are eager to voice our burdens to God.

Like so much of the Christian Walk, prayer is so much simpler than we often make it, but so difficult to do properly when our pride gets in the way. Prayer is foremost about God, not us. Prayer is more about our spiritual selves--that most important, everlasting part of us--than it is about our physical selves. Because God is always faithful to provide for us, we find that, as prayer grows us and matures us, it becomes as much about our response to God as it does God's response to us. In the simple, beautiful way Jesus taught us, prayer is how God draws us closer.