Lord, Teach Us to Pray

The disciples who said this had grown up in a praying nation. They knew the psalms by heart; they had stood through long synagogue services. And yet, watching Jesus pray, they confessed they did not know how to pray. They had said many prayers — they had not prayed.

Is it not the same with us? We say many prayers. We have used the Lord's Prayer a thousand times, and our hearts have wandered through nine hundred of them. We need to come, as those disciples came, and sit at his feet, and say honestly: Lord, I do not know how to pray. Teach me.

He will. He is the Teacher of prayer. He is the One who prays in us by his Spirit. He turns mere words into the speech of the heart. Bring him, then, your stumbling and your dryness. He receives the request the moment it is made.