Why Pray: Questions with Anne

I have never had a favorite book, but Anne of Green Gables just might steal my heart! I am only on chapter eleven, but so far it is about a dramatic, redheaded girl that gets “accidently” adopted by an elderly brother and sister who were looking to adopt a boy to help with the chores around their farm. Within just a few days, Anne wins their heart and these unlikely two suddenly find themselves raising the most unique girl they have ever met.

Before you stop reading, this post is not all about my new favorite book. I wanted this post to be all about prayer and oddly enough, Anne has given me a lot to consider on this subject! In the words of Marilla (the elderly sister), Anne grew up a heathen because she was never taught to pray. In chapter seven, Marilla decides that it is time to learn and instructs Anne to pray every night before she goes to bed. One of the requirements Marilla gives is that Anne must kneel down to pray. Anne’s response is one of pure child-like honesty:

“Why must people kneel down to pray? If I really wanted to pray, I’ll tell you what I’d do! I’d go out into a great big field all alone, or into the deep, deep, woods, and I’d look up into the sky---up---up---up into that lovely blue sky that looks as if there was no end to its blueness. And then I’d just “feel” a prayer…”

While Anne is no expert, I think she brings up a beautiful picture of what prayer is. It is our time to stop, take ourselves out of the endless rush of life, and ponder on who He is. Prayer is so much more than a posture, a journal, or a specific time. Prayer is a gift that allows us to talk to a Holy God.

At the same time that this sounds exciting and inspiring, it also sounds incredibly confusing to me. How do we talk to a Holy God that we can never fully understand? Lucky for us, Anne of Green Gables is not our only resource. The scripture is full of examples of prayer from other people and even from Jesus himself. I really wanted to zoom in on His prayer life in the hopes of finding a formula to pray that would assure me that all of my prayers would be answered. I have had specific requests for the Lord. Some I have been lifting up to him for years. Others for a few months, but all have seemed to lack fruitful answers recently. Does it mean that I am praying incorrectly when my prayers seem to go unnoticed? If I have asked the Lord for something and didn’t receive it, what do I do then? Is it selfish or pointless to keep my prayers on repeat, even if they are for people I deeply care about or for needs that really must be met? I thought, if I could just figure out the correct way to pray, then maybe my prayer time would get some life back into it and I could begin to write down some answers to the repetitive requests growing throughout my journal.

As you would guess, this blog post will also not be about “how to get your prayers answered,” though if I am honest, that was really my hope. As I sought the Lord on this subject, He continuously brought me back to the question I believe we all need to ask in order to break our routines and false notions of prayer:

Why do we pray?

To find the “why” behind prayer, I began looking into the Lord’s prayer. This is the famous scene where the disciples ask Jesus, “How do we pray,” and then Jesus literally gives them an example! It is funny to me that prayer still seems so challenging. Literally Jesus, said “pray like this.” So, shouldn’t we just recite his same words every time we pray? While I believe this was a model, I do not believe Jesus really meant, say these specific words every time you pray. This means that there must be some underlying message or theme that he wanted our prayers to have.

Based off of the surrounding context, which we will look at soon, I have come to the conclusion that prayer is not about a formula or a routine. Prayer is always about the heart. In Matthew 6:5-8, Jesus says “Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites because they love to pray while standing in the synagogues and on the street corners so people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward! But whenever you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. Do not be like them, for the father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

Jesus then immediately goes into the Lord’s prayer. In the Net translation of the Bible, the first line says, “Our Father in Heaven, may your name be honored…”

This helped me come to a second conclusion that was a little harder to accept than the first one: Prayer is not about me. It is not about us or our problems. Prayer is about honoring God. This then, helps us to see how gracious our God truly is! While he deserves to be honored, he desires to be a part of our lives. Verse 8 said, the Father knows what we need before we even ask! But later on in Matthew, Jesus still instructs us to give our requests to God and that he will be faithful to answer (Matthew 7: 7-8). Both of these verses combined tell me that this means He still wants to hear from us! The Holy God wants to hear my voice! I don’t know about you, but I just find that crazy. Because my mind is often a mess! I go to him with complaints, frustrations, worries…. But the Lord wants to meet with me. He wants to hear my requests and my desires and all that I think about this life that He has given me. He wants to provide for me and make sure I have my daily bread.

While there are so many things that we could dive into by analyzing the Lord's prayer and the other moments in scripture where Jesus prays, I think this is where He would like for us to pause today. To really see the graciousness of God and ask ourselves, “why do I pray?” Am I praying to receive answers or to see God? Am I praying to hear my own voice or to hear His? Am I speaking with genuine words from my heart, or do I come to him with recitations and mindless babble to knock that part of my day out before I head to work?

I don’t want my life to revolve around my worries or my time with the Lord to be just a routine list of the things I need him to supply. God is so much bigger than that! I want to find a field, lie under a big tree, look up…up…up… and be reminded that our God is as vast as the endlessly blue sky. To be reminded that He is in control today, just as he was yesterday. Everything functions on his time and in the exact way that He has planned it. Maybe the problems we face don’t go away with this statement, but the burden isn’t all that we see when we shift our focus to the Lord. Faithful is who He is, not what He brings, and He is and always will be faithful to us. So, let’s all start our prayers fresh this week as Jesus taught us: “Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored…”