Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

Enjoying God

Luke 11:1-4 – Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” And he said to them, “When you pray, say: “Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.”

THEME OF THE DAY. ENJOYING GOD. As one reads today’s scripture and enters the scene between Jesus and His disciples, it isn’t difficult to determine why the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.” It isn’t that they had never prayed. But look when their request occurred. It was right after they heard Jesus pray. It makes perfect sense to ask, “Lord, teach us to pray” after hearing Him pray. If we were in earshot of hearing our Lord pray, then evaluated our own prayer life, we would feel like the disciples; as if we had never prayed and like them, we, too, would ask the Lord to teach us to pray.

Today, I was sitting in a chair and my wife walked by. She stopped and asked, “How do I pray?” She sat down and we began a conversation. She went on “What is prayer? How do I really pray?” I know she prays. I hear her. I pray with her. She leads women’s prayer meetings. But her question is a good one and one we should probe deeper in our relationship with the Lord.

I began to answer her question with the model prayer of today’s scripture and that of Matthew 6. Then the conversation took a slightly different direction and much deeper in content. My wife quizzed, “What does God get out of us praying?” Ever ask that question? Ever view prayer from that angle? I responded, “Well, we can add nothing to or take anything away from God. He is totally sufficient and satisfied in Himself. Our praying or not praying won’t alter this about Him.” But then I added something else. I looked at Joy and said, “I think we pray to learn to enjoy God. And I think He takes great pleasure when we enjoy Him.”

Have we ever thought of prayer as primarily the way to enjoy God? It is. It tells Him, “I want to be in Your Presence, not to get things from You but to spend time with You.” Remember the disciples watching Jesus pray? This happened often. He went away for long periods of time to pray. Why? To enjoy time with His Father. Start reading the Psalms and notice how often the Psalmist proclaims his delight in God and that through prayer. We will find many examples of the Psalmist, not asking God for things, but simply marveling over, even enjoying, God in prayer.

Let me encourage each of us to start setting aside time, maybe initially each week, but hopefully soon each day, to just get alone with God for prayer to enjoy Him. This will mean the discipline not to ask Him for things. It will require a heart and mind committed to focusing on His attributes, meditating on His names, and praying back scripture to Him. As this begins to shape our prayer lives, we will find ourselves spending more time in prayer to simply adore and enjoy God. And that is one of the primary reasons why we pray.

PRAYER: “Father, I so praise You for hearing my prayers even when they are just groans in my heart.”

QUOTE: “True prayer doesn’t require words and oftentimes, the best prayers may not contain words.”