Some Thoughts On Prayer...

All believers pray, whether they know it or not.  All believers are prayed for whether they know it or not.  How do we pray?  What do we pray for?  How often should we pray?  Read further to see our thoughts.

First, let us make one thing totally clear.  None of us knows HOW to pray.  This is plainly stated by Paul in Romans 8:26:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

The Holy Spirit helps with our "infirmities" and one of these is our inability to do two things when it comes to prayer.  We do not know what to pray for.  And we do not know how we should pray for these things.  The English word infirmity would move the average English speaker to think of disease.  It can be mean in the Greek, but it can also mean moral or intellectual weakness or imperfection.  Here, it has a moral nuance.

Our old nature affects the whole person.  The part that we are prone to forget is that even out logic is hired by the old man in us to logically argue for the point that it wants.  There is no such thing as neutral reasoning in a person. 

All logic makes moral assumptions, is tempted to go astray and once this happens, it is then prostituted to work for evil or ungodly goals.

Contrast this with the typical statements about prayer made by many godly and well-meaning men.  We think of a series of books by, for instance, Edward McKendree Bounds

EM Bounds

 He wrote a series of books on prayer.  Obviously, he regarded it as very essential in the lives of Christians as well as his own.   No one is questioning his sincerity or prayer-driven life.  In one of his books titled, Essentials of Prayer, Bound states:

Prayer has to do with the entire man. Prayer takes in man in his whole being, mind, soul and body. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire man in its gracious results. As the whole nature of man enters into prayer, so also all that belongs to man is the beneficiary of prayer. All of man receives benefits in prayer. The whole man must be given to God in praying. The largest results in praying come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all that belongs to himself, to God. This is the secret of full consecration, and this is a condition of successful praying, and the sort of praying which brings the largest fruits. 

The men of olden times who wrought well in prayer, who brought the largest things to pass, who moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in man in answering his prayers. He must have whole-hearted men through whom to work out His purposes and plans concerning men. God must have men in their entirety. No double-minded man need apply. No vacillating man can be used. No man with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and self, can do the praying that is needed. 

Holiness is wholeness, and so God wants holy men, men whole-hearted and true, for his service and for the work of praying. “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” These are the sort of men God wants for leaders of the hosts of Israel, and these are the kind out of which the praying class is formed. Man is a trinity in one, and yet man is neither a trinity nor a dual creature when he prays, but a unit. Man is one in all the essentials and acts and attitudes of piety. Soul, spirit and body are to unite in all things pertaining to life and godliness.

At first glance, this passage sounds very powerful and right.  But when one examines it more carefully, the flaws appear. The first question that comes to mind is how can any man claim to have his whole soul, mind, and body into a prayer at all times, or, even some of the time?  

All the men of the Bible whose prayers were answered were weak and flawed men.  The passage that Bounds mentions is not talking about prayer.  It is talking about Paul's wish for these believers.  This wish is the goal towards which all believers head.  No one would ever pray or ask God to only preserve part of our souls, spirit, and body.  Indeed, this is the promise of Jesus that none of the sheep that the Father had given him would be lost.  So Paul is praying for something he KNOWS will happen.  This preservation is not dependent on anything in the creature.  It is all the work of God's grace.

SPECIFIC POSTURING DURING PRAYER
Bounds also tells us what position we must pray in:

The body, first of all, engages in prayer, since it assumes the praying attitude in prayer. Prostration of the body becomes us in praying as well as prostration of the soul. The attitude of the body counts much in prayer, although it is true that the heart may be haughty and lifted up, and the mind listless and wandering, and the praying a mere form, even while the knees are bent in prayer.

Yes, it is true that the scriptures mention Daniel kneeling and praying towards Jerusalem three times a day.  Yes, it is true that Solomon prayed on his knees at the dedication of the temple.  It is also true that the Lord Jesus prayed on his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It is even true that in Psalm 95:8 we are exhorted to kneel down as we pray,  O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.  

There is nothing wrong with kneeling down as we pray.  There is nothing wrong with facing Jerusalem as we pray.  Indeed, kneeling is a sign of humility and therefore a wonderful way to demonstrate to the Lord how we feel about him.  But human nature is evil and uses even the outward signs of religious fervor to transform it into some action with ritualistic power. 

Even if it is not seen as something with ritualistic power, it can be secretly seen by the person doing it as something to be proud about, perhaps even something to look down on others over for not doing it.  This is an example of the desperately wicked heart that is deceitfully above all things, that no one but God can know that Jeremiah speaks about. (Jeremiah 17:9)

The Pharisees are the most obvious example of this deceitful ritualism.  In a well-respected study titled, A History of the Jewish People at

the time of Jesus Christ by Emil Schurer, he explains just how much the Jews added to the Law in their effort to preserve it:

In every department of life action no longer proceeds from inward motive, is no longer the free manifestation of a moral disposition, but results from the external constraint of the statutory requirement. And such requirement reaches equally to everything, to the greatest as to the least, to the most important as to the most indifferent; every act, whether great or trifling, when estimated by a moral standard, is now of the same value; there is but one point of view for all: to do what is commanded, because it is commanded. And thus there is, of course, no higher vocation, than to be faithful to the letter for the letter’s sake. All depends, not on the inward motive, but on the external correctness of an action.

When it came for example to the not working on the Sabbath, Schurer writes:

The Rabbis could not rest satisfied with this simple prohibition. They must also accurately define what work was forbidden. And consequently they at last, with much ingenuity, got out of it, that on the whole thirty-nine kinds of work was prohibited, but very few are of course anywhere alluded to in the Pentateuch. These thirty-nine prohibited works are: (1) sowing, (2) ploughing, (3) reaping, (4) binding sheaves, (5) threshing, (6) winnowing, (7) cleansing crops, (8) grinding, (9) sifting, (10) kneading, (11) baking, (12) shearing wool, (13) washing, (14) beating, (15) dyeing, (16) spinning, and (17) warping it, (18) making two

cords, (19) weaving two threads, (20) separating two threads, (21) making a knot, (22) untying a knot, (23) sewing two stitches, (24) tearing to sew two stitches, (25) catching a deer, (26) killing, (27) skinning, and (28) salting it, (29) preparing its skin, (30) scraping off the hair, (31) cutting it up, (32) writing two letters, (33) blotting out for the purpose of writing two letters, (34) building, (35) pulling down, (36) putting out a fire, (37) lighting a fire, (38) beating smooth with a hammer, (39) carrying from one tenement to another. Each of these chief enactments again requires further discussions concerning their range and meaning.

If this appears a little exhausting and confusing, it is because it IS.  Schurer goes on to relate the rabbinical discussions of the kinds of knots that are permitted or not permitted to be tied on the Sabbath:

And here, properly speaking, begins the work of casuistry. We will bring forward just a few of its results. According to Ex. 34, the reason of tying, so also of untying them. R. Meir says: Guilt is not incurred by reason of a knot, which can be untied with

one hand. There are knots by reason of which one is not guilty, as one is in the case of the camel-driver’s and sailor’s knots. A woman may tie up a slit in her shift and the strings of her cap, those of her girdle, the straps of the shoes and sandals, of skins of wine and oil, of a pot with meat” And to tie strings of the girdle being permitted, it was agreed that a pail also might be tied over the well with a girdle, but not with a rope.

Then there was the discussion of writing on the Sabbath and whether that was a violation of the commandment: 

The prohibition of writing on the Sabbath (No. 32) was further defined as follows: “He who writes two letters with his right or his left hand, whether of one kind or of two kinds, as also if they are written with different ink or are of different languages, is guilty. He even who should from forgetfulness write two letters is guilty, whether he has written them with ink or with paint, red chalk, India-rubber, vitriol, or anything which makes permanent marks. Also, he who writes on two walls which form an angle, or

on the two tablets of his account-book, so that they can be read together, is guilty. He who writes upon his body is guilty. If anyone writes with a dark fluid, with fruit juice, or in the dust on the road, in the sand, or in anything in which the writing does not remain, he is free. If anyone writes with the wrong hand, with the foot, with the mouth, with the elbow; also if anyone writes a letter of another piece of writing, or covers other writing; also if anyone meaning to write ח has only written two ז ז, or if anyone has written one letter on the ground and one upon the wall, or upon two walls of the house, or upon two pages of a book, so that they cannot be read together, he is free. If in forgetfulness he writes two letters at different times, perhaps one in the morning and one towards evening, R. Gamaliel pronounces him guilty, the learned declare him free.”

So, it is natural for man to build his own traditions and add them to the commandments of God.  Jesus clearly accused the Jews of his day of doing so.

Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. 9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. (Mark 7:7-9)

So, in the case of kneeling, although there are examples of men and Jesus kneeling, there are also countless times prayer is described and no mention is made of any kneeling, even on the part of Jesus (Luke 11:1), in fact a good number of prayers were done standing (I Kings 8:22-26; II Chronicles 20:5).  Even wormwood in CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters exalts kneeling in prayer as an added benefit that can add to a prayer.

When the patient is an adult recently re-converted to the Enemy’s party, like your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember, or to think he remembers, the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood. In reaction against that, he may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularised; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part. One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray “with moving lips and bended

knees” but merely “composed his spirit to love” and indulged “a sense of supplication”. That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy’s service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. (Letter 4)

In disagreeing with the fictional demon Screwtape, we quote Lewis's preface to the book where he says, "Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle."

But returning once again to Bounds, it needs to be asked why he is so selective as to the requirements of prayer?  He does not mention the facing towards Jerusalem as Daniel did.  He also does not emphasize the three-times-a-day-prayers practice that Daniel did (Daniel 6:10).

But why stop there?  What about the commandment in Exodus 13 and repeated in Deuteronomy 11:18-19 which states:

Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

If we are going to follow form and ritualism, at least the Jews are consistent. 

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This is not to say that there is anything wrong with kneeling or facing Jerusalem or anything else when you pray, as long as you do it godly manner and from a pure heart.  But to require them is unwarranted from scripture.

LOCATION OF PRAYER
Bounds also discusses the location of the prayer - "the prayer closet."  How did this closet idea originate?  It originated from a phrase Jesus spoke about praying in secret.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. 8 Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. (Matthew 6:5-8)

The fact that the Pharisees prayed standing, even though they slavishly followed the FORM of things, indicates that praying on while being on ones knees was not the norm in praying otherwise they would have done it for show.

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Jesus introduces a new concept - praying in secret, specifically in your closet in your house.  But we must not imagine that this"closet" was of the type we have today, closets we can go inside of.  The Greek word used is ταμεῖον, meaning anything from a storage room or perhaps an inner chamber. As can be seen from the color sketch, there was not much place for privacy in ancient Israeli homes. So this means that what Jesus was asking was not the norm. It would not have been the typical practice of godly Jews due to the physical limitations of their homes.

Of course, this secretness was not limited to prayer, it also included the giving of alms.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: 4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:2-4)

We do not see anyone today advocating for the giving of money in secret with the passing of the basket in thousands of churches every Sunday, although this could of course be done.

THE "FERVENCY" OF PRAYER VS THE REALITY OF PRAYING

We again quote Bounds not to pick on him, but because his view is so prevalent.  It seems an overly simplistic, black/white view of godliness, holiness, and dedication.  It sees no shades of gray or moments of weakness.  We quote:

It is man’s business to pray; and it takes manly men to do it. It is godly business to pray and it takes godly men to do it. And it is godly men who give over themselves entirely to prayer. Prayer is far-reaching in its influence and in its gracious effects. It is intense and profound business which deals with God and His plans and purposes, and it takes whole-hearted men to do it. No half-hearted, half-brained, half-spirited effort will do for this serious, all-important, heavenly business. The whole heart, the whole brain, the whole spirit, must be in the matter of praying, which is so mightily to affect the characters and destinies of men.

So what is the reality of prayer if it is not this?  Praying is a continual conversation with God.  It means that you are in a constant state of communication with him, not just in some formal way ending all you say in Jesus' name, but constant awareness of God's presence.  An understanding that every event that happens during the day is not some chance event but put there by your heavenly Father who loves you.  It is not some intense hour or two of focus on requests or adoration.  It is praying without ceasing because it consists of a state of existence in the presence of the Lord.

All the other approaches of prayer disregard Paul's exhortation to pray without ceasing.  They ALL cease no matter how intense they are while they happen.

But perhaps the answer is in the term "walking".
Gen. 5:22 And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters:

Gen. 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.  


Deut. 5:33 Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.


Deut. 10:12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,


Josh. 22:5 But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the LORD charged you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

1Kings 8:23 And he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk before thee with all their heart:


1Kings 8:25 Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant David my father that thou promised him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked before me.


1Kings 8:61 Let your heart, therefore, be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day.


1Kings 15:3 And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father.

1Kings 16:26 For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin, to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger with their vanities.


2Kings 10:31 But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the LORD God of Israel with all his heart: for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin.


2Chr. 6:14 And said, O LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee in the heaven, nor in the earth; which keepest covenant, and shewest mercy unto thy servants, that walk before thee with all their hearts:  

Mic. 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?


2Cor. 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This is communion with God or withe the devil.  You can commune with good or evil.  Communion with God can include prayer but is not limited to it.  It is continual, complete way of life.

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PRAYER

There is only one place in scripture where we are told to pray according to God's will.  1John 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us:  This passage is commonly used to explain why our prayers are not granted.  James also seems to agree with this passage. James 4:2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

The question is why is there are there such a small number of passages that express this thought?  Surely, for such an important point as this, one would think that there ought to be more passages expressing it.  Certainly God's ultimate will cannot be voided or changed by prayer.  But the problem is that we do not always, or even most of the time know what is God's will.  The scriptures are there to guide us in general principles of right and wrong, but they do not many times, tell us clearly what a course of action should be.

In fact, there are times when the sovereign God "changes his mind" and "repents" of an action he said he would take.  Based on other places in scriptures, we understand that God intended to do what he finally did all along, but used his original statements to spur prayer and real repentance.  With Jonah, God had said that he would destroy Nineveh, but when the entire city repented, the scriptures say:

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. (Jonah 3:10)

This change of mind was because of their change of behavior.  Part of this change of behavior was their prayers for mercy.

In the New Testament, Jesus was passing through the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.  This was not Jewish territory.

Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. 27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. (Matthew 15:21-28)

Was the woman praying according to the will of God?  Was it necessarily God's will that her daughter be healed?  The answer is no.  But her determination was great!  Even after Jesus told her he had not been sent to her people, she debated with the Son of God.  After Jesus saw her GREAT faith, he told her to be it unto thee as thou wilt.  In other words, he acted according to her will.  We only know by looking back with the advantage of the rest of the scriptures that Jesus wanted to bring forth from her this great faith and use it as a lesson to the rest watching.

In this context, Jesus tells a story about persistence in prayer even when there is reluctance on the part of the Lord.

And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; 2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: 3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. 4 And he would not for a while: but afterward, he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; 5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. 6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. 7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cries day and night unto him, though he bears long with them? 8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. (Luke 18:1-8)

 It is implied here that if men faint when they pray, then the blessing that they might have received is not given.  Otherwise, what is the point of the parable?

Christianity is a vibrant, living religion.  To be true to itself it must live inside you.  Whenever anything is ritualized, where the form of how it is to be done is emphasized over the why it is being done, then the practice will become dead and powerless either immediately, or over time.  God is not a god of forms and rituals, but of spirit and of power.