Lord
Teach Us How To Pray
TiffanyAnn Lewis
Just when I thought I had this prayer
business all figured out, the Lord threw me a monkey
wrench. We were having a severe crisis in our life.
My husband had gone into a contract with someone
who was suddenly dealing very dishonestly with us.
Although we had done everything right and had lawyers
and documents to back us up, my husband became afraid
that we would loose everything. There was absolutely
nothing I could say or do to help fix this situation
or calm his nerves. Thankfully I had spent years
researching the subject of prayer for “just a time
as this.” I was ready and felt well equipped to
fight this battle. So armed with the facts and
encouraged by our innocence; I sent off the requests
to the intercessors and went into the prayer closet.
Within weeks I stumbled upon something in the book
of Job that would change my prayer life forever.
Concerning the man Job, God said
“there is none like him on the earth, a blameless
and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil.”
(Job 1:8) Wow! Job was the kinda guy that
regularly burnt offerings for his sons just in case
they had sinned, even if only in their hearts. (see
Job 1:5) He was a man who would dot his i’s
and cross his t’s. Job didn’t want any chance
of having God take His Hand far away from him. (see
Job 13:21)
Well in just one day Job, God’s upright
and blameless servant lost everything. He lost
his livestock, his servants, his house, his children
and even his health was attacked. Job’s friends
just wanted him to repent. They were convinced
that all this was going on because there was some
unconfessed sin in his life. But Job remained steadfast
and defended his innocence. Job knew how God’s
system of redemption worked, that’s why he offered
a sacrifice regularly to cover any sin, known or
unknown to him. Truly he was in all ways blameless
and upright and he was desperately waving it like
a flag to heaven so God would see it and save him.
Yes Job was right, however he was
waving just how right he was in front of God’s face,
trying to justify himself through his works. This
is called self-righteousness. It is a righteousness
that we achieve by doing something right. Unfortunately
to a Holy God “all our righteousnesses
are like filthy rags.” (Is. 64:6)
Job said; “Though He slay me,
yet will I trust Him.” Very good. “Even
so, I will defend my own ways before Him.” (Job
13:15) Not so good, yet that’s what I was doing
too. As a born again, Spirit-filled believer I
trusted the Lord completely! “Lord to whom shall
we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
(John 6:68) Seriously, there is no place else
for me to go anymore, I am His! However, unbeknownst
to me, I was justifying our case with what we did
right and what the other man did wrong. “...see
now, I have prepared my case, I know that I shall
be vindicated.” (Job 13:18) I felt we deserved
to be vindicated and trusted the Lord to do it because
of our innocence. I should have been trusting in
Him to do it because of His love, mercy and compassion
not because we were right and the other guy was
wrong.
Give me 10 commandments and I’ll
justify myself through them by keeping a list of
what I’ve done right and give you excuses for what
I’ve done wrong. That’s why Jesus needed to raise
the bar by saying whosoever is "so much
as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder.”
(Matt. 5:22 MSG) “Whoever looks at a woman to
lust for her has already committed adultery with
her in his heart.” (Matt. 5:28) He didn’t
do this because we are hopeless hypocrites, but
rather to reveal to us our human tendency to redeem
our self through self-justification as well as to
show us the holiness that God requires.
Do we need Him yet or will we justify our anger
by blaming the other person? Will we put blinders
on our eyes and say; “See, I haven’t looked at a
thing!”
Why on
this side of the cross do we still make lists of
what we did right and wave it before God? It’s
so easy to fall into the mentality of thinking that
if I am or do good the Lord will givith and if not
He will taketh away. (see Job 1:21) Oh yes, we
have faith in Jesus Christ and we want Him to move
on our behalf but too often we hold a list of good
deeds before Him to justify what we are asking for.
When
the disciples came and asked Jesus “Lord, teach
us to pray.” He taught them like this, “Our
Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name”—stop!
(Luke 11:1-4 KJV)
His
Name is - the Lord.
His personality
is - very compassionate.
His character is
- merciful.
Our Father
who art in heaven wants us to come to Him as little
children empty-handed asking Him; “can You help
me, Daddy?” But there is something inside of us
all that wants to say; “look Daddy, I did it all
by myself.” That is the first step we take to independence
and self-reliance. It’s also our first step away
from Him. In John 3:3-4 Jesus said to Nicodemus,
“unless one is born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.” Nicodemus asked how can we
do this? “Can he enter a second time into his
mother’s womb and be born?” This is a picture
of how far we have come away from reliance on the
Lord, and where He is giving us access to return.
To be like a babe in the arms of its Father; completely
and utterly dependent on Him and Him alone. Relying
on Him for everything but not based on the condition
of being right but rather just knowing He’s my Abba,
my Father, my Daddy. (Rom. 8:15) What a safe place
to be. No lists of works done right or wrong, just
being held close to His heart in the Spirit.
James
5:11 tells us that the intended end of all Job’s
suffering was to learn that “the Lord is very
compassionate and merciful.” God did not cause
Job’s sufferings but He did allow them. God planned
for Job to learn, through his sufferings, an absolute
dependence on Him not on anything he could do right
or wrong. I think He planned on that for us as
well.
*All scripture is quoted from NKJV
unless noted.
*This writing is not intended to become a doctrine but
rather something to ponder and glean
from if the Lord speaks to you through it.
