Dear Theophilus,
I am grateful to be able to say
that these letters have been a gift—they have set my heart thinking about more
important things than ever before. I
have questioned many of the assumptions upon which I have based my life, and I
have examined the ways I treat others, particularly those outside my close
circle of companions. Even if I reach
the end and have no idea what to make of Jesus and his teachings, I can say
with gratitude that I strive to be a better person now, and while Jesus seems
to desire more than just converted actions, he has had that effect on this man.
You note how filled your life is
with distraction toward the end of your letter, and we move from a discussion
on busy-ness into one focused on prayer, an area in which I certainly have no
expertise. I spend little time praying
and am not even sure how best one should define prayer. I suppose it is talking to God, but I doubt
that I would hear much of a response if I invested my time and energy in such a
practice. The thought of prayer has
always seemed a bit strange—it’s like a conversation in which one half says
nothing. That leaves a lot of room for
misinterpretation, in my opinion, if we’re just supposed to guess what God’s replies
to our queries would be. Perhaps it is
more nuanced than that, but I just can’t shake the feeling that prayer is like
talking to one’s self, only with the notion that someone who can’t be seen or
heard is listening. Excuse my skepticism
and my attack on the practice, Theophilus, but I can’t help but wonder what
prayer accomplishes. Perhaps by the end
of this particular exploration I’ll have reached a different place.
Once, after Jesus had finished his
prayers, his disciples approached him with a question, a request—they wanted
Jesus to teach them to pray, just as John taught his disciples how to
pray. They wanted to know how to talk to
God. May they had similar feelings to
the ones I hold—that prayer felt silly, felt ineffective, and they wanted to
know how to do it properly.
In response, Jesus gives them the
following:
Lord
God, Father in Heaven, may your name be holy, and may we speak it in reverence,
in awe
May
your Kingdom come, the one that you have promised, to which our souls
anticipate with achy fervor,
Feed
us, Lord, each day, by your generous hand,
And
forgive our transgressions, our sins, our shortcomings, as we ourselves seek to
forgive those who trespass against us.
Lord,
lead us not into the dark places where trials and temptations lurk.
It’s a beautiful model for prayer,
Theophilus. It’s about praising God,
it’s about looking forward to his reign here on earth, and also addresses the
present day. The prayer focuses on
depending on God daily, about asking for forgiveness as well as the strength
and wisdom to forgive others, and it also touches on asking God to make our
path a little easier by keeping temptation at bay. I don’t know if Jesus intends for us to pray
this exact prayer or simply model prayers upon it, but it’s a structure that
could hold almost all of one’s needs in prayer.
Prayer is a foreign landscape to
me. I hope you can shed some light on
this topic for this man, an outsider peering in trying to understand just what
prayer is. It is an odd practice, yet
one that seems so central to the life of Jesus and the disciples.
Sincerely,
Luke
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