Learning to Pray with Jesus [30 Days of Prayer]

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1)

In order to become a person of prayer, we must want to learn. Like Jesus’ disciples in Luke 11, we must not only want to learn to pray, but we must also ask the Master Teacher to show us the way. There were many things the disciples noticed about Jesus, but one of them was His life of prayer. We read in the Gospels that Jesus drew away by Himself to pray (Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12-13). The disciples undoubtedly noticed not only the actions of Jesus, but the character that resulted from this life of prayer. As they noticed it, they also desired it.

Because of what they saw, the disciples reached out to Jesus, requesting that He teach them to pray. In a few days, we will examine Jesus’ teaching on prayer, known as the Lord’s Prayer, but it is enough for us now to notice that the disciples’ request is met with Jesus’ willingness to teach. As Andrew Murray points out:

Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, only how to pray. He did not speak much of what was needed to preach well, but much of praying well. To know how to speak to God is more than knowing how to speak to man. [1]

Do we desire to pray like Jesus? Are we ready to learn from Him? Let this be the moment in which we stop all the rushing thoughts about what will come next in our day so that we might humbly approach Jesus in prayer. Let this be the moment in which we also say, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

Lord, teach me to pray
 as You taught Your original disciples to pray.
Ignorant and humble as I am,
  bring the riches of wisdom about prayer to me.
Although I will always be a beginner,
  let me start today
as a student of prayer
  with You.

[1] Andrew Murray, With Christ in the School of Prayer (Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Co., 1885), 15-16.

[This post is part of the “30 Days of Prayer” devotional. Read other posts here.]