Old Testament examples

“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months” (James 5:17). What was the point of God responding to such a prayer? When we read from 1 Kings 16:29 onwards we discover that the people of Israel – God’s witnesses – were in desperate need of reformation. The point of Elijah’s prayer and God’s response was to make the king and people realise that only by submitting to God could they survive the drought. Yet it was more than this: the suffering brought by the drought should have made them aware of their disobedience to God and their need for His forgiveness.

Just as there had been a special demonstration of the power of God when Israel were brought out of Egypt by Moses, so during the period of Elijah and Elisha there was a spate of miraculous activity to accompany the working of God’s prophets. Elijah’s overriding concern was that God’s will should be done, and his prayer was answered because it accorded with God’s will at that time.

Daniel’s prayer, recorded in Daniel 9, is another example of prayer which was fully in tune with the will of God. From the beginning of the prayer we see how right Daniel’s attitude was. At the time he was living in Babylon in exile with the Jews. The nation was suffering the consequences of failing to heed God’s earlier warnings to serve Him faithfully. Daniel, praying on behalf of his people, accepted that God is righteous and that he and his people needed forgiveness for their sins. This led to his request that God would return the Jews to the land of Israel and to Jerusalem in particular.

Two points can be noted: firstly we need to realise that Daniel’s prayer is full of allusions to earlier words in the Bible. He prayed as one who had filled his mind with God’s thinking – and he did this by regular reading of the books of the Bible which then existed.

Secondly, his prime petition – that his people should be forgiven and allowed to re-establish themselves and their worship in Jerusalem – was something that Daniel knew God had promised He would carry out. Jeremiah, for example, had prophesied:

“‘For behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord, ‘that I will bring back from captivity my people Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.’” (Jeremiah 30:3)

In addition, Daniel knew from Jeremiah 25:11,12 that the period of captivity would last 70 years. Since the people were not taken into captivity all at once, he did not know exactly when the 70 years would end. But he knew approximately, as a result of which he fervently prayed that God’s will should be done soon.

So Daniel prayed as a man who had humbled himself before God. He had listened to God and become thoroughly familiar with what He had revealed in His word, and so he prayed in harmony with what he knew to be the will of God. He was the sort of person referred to when God earlier declared:

“But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2)

A right relationship with God

Effective prayer depends upon a relationship with God. This must be built on a knowledge and understanding of Him. The Lord Jesus Christ himself prayed:

“And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Such knowledge is to be found, in the first instance, in the inspired writings of the Bible. But to know God is not simply to know about Him. When a husband and wife know each other, they do not just have in their minds a pen-portrait of their partner. Their knowledge is intimate and deep, because of the nature of their relationship. It depends upon continued, regular contact, the acceptance of responsibilities and the desire to grow in knowledge and understanding of each other.

To acknowledge one’s need as a sinner, whose imperfection is in marked contrast to the glorious perfection of God’s character; to develop that “poor and contrite” spirit, which desires to be moved by the power of God through His word, to realise from the knowledge of God’s gracious dealings with men and women of past ages that the same grace can be extended to us today – this is to begin the process of praise and thanksgiving which marks the beginning of prayer.

There is no room here for the casual or the careless. God is in heaven, man upon earth. We cannot assume familiarity or presume upon His loving kindness. It is God’s to command, ours to obey. We cannot call God “Our Father”, without at the same time giving reverence to His name. And we cannot do that unless we seek to do His will upon earth as it is done in heaven. If we are to benefit from the privilege of being called His sons and daughters, we must, after serious consideration, join His family:

“Now by this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” (1 John 2:3)

Response and responsibility

As our knowledge of God’s commandments grows, so we learn the need for repentance – sorrow at our personal sin and inadequacy and a commitment to turn away from sin. We learn of God’s love in providing a perfect Son, “the way, the truth and the life”, through whom alone men may come to God. We learn that to be associated with that saving work we must be born again, that is we express our faith and obedience by baptism – immersion into water as a symbol of our association with the death of Jesus and with his resurrection, as we rise from the water to a new life. “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). As newly born sons and daughters of God we try to follow the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so there is held out to us the hope of sharing Christ’s glory when he comes to rule over the earth in peace and righteousness:

“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God … Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1,2)

Belief, repentance, baptism, a life of faith, the hope of eternal life granted at the judgement after the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, when he will establish the kingdom of God and fulfil the hope of Israel – this is but a brief summary of what we need to understand if our commitment to God’s family is to have any real meaning.

The Lord’s Prayer

The Lord’s Prayer was given in response to his disciples’ request for instruction in prayer. Clearly the prayer given by the Lord is not something to repeat vainly, like a magical incantation. Yet it is good that we should meditate upon the weight of those solemn words:

“Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9,10)

What to pray for

For many people prayer consists of asking God for what they want. For some the proof of whether God actually exists consists of testing whether He will grant a particular request. They quote the words of Jesus: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

During the ministry of Jesus and in the years immediately after his ascension, prayer often brought a miraculous response: sick people were healed, the dead were raised to life again, food was provided for hungry people. These miracles were done through the power of the Holy Spirit, possessed by the Lord and his disciples. We know that once the whole Bible had been written these Spirit Gifts were gradually withdrawn by God and therefore we should not expect a miracle in response to every request we make today.

This is not to say that God’s power is not demonstrated today, or to imply that God is not interested in us. There is a children’s prayer which simply states a truth:

“God always listens whenever we pray,
    He’s never too busy to hear what we say.”