The Principles of Prayer LV

 No one has ever had to guess at why Jesus spoke the parable of the widow and the unjust judge. He didn’t bury the lead or leave its purpose unsaid. He did not allow for an individual to draw their own conclusion as to why He spoke this parable, or insist that they guess at its meaning. He spoke the parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart. That was its purpose, that was its goal, and given how quick man is to interpret every dot and tittle at the drop of a hat, Jesus made sure that everyone understood the intent behind the parable that was being spoken.

Jesus was so direct about the purpose of this parable due to the importance of prayer in our daily lives, giving specific instructions and insisting that prayer isn’t optional for a child of God, but a necessity as existential as breathing oxygen is for the physical man. The one other practice He went out of His way to insist and expound upon to such an extent is that of fasting.

That these two above all others are so demeaned, minimized, and ignored by much of the contemporary church should give enough insight into the spiritual health of the modern-day church. No matter how opulent, decadent, and filled with every modern convenience one could think of a sanctuary might be, if prayer and fasting are absent, it’s still just a building, absent life, filled with ambulatory corpses that go through the motions week in and week out without experiencing the true presence and power of God.

We do our best to manufacture excitement, to create an experience, replete with screeching vocalists and flashing lights that will likely send one prone to them into epileptic fits, but as far as the presence of God is concerned, that cannot be manufactured, copied, or counterfeited.

The best way I can describe it is that there is a weight to the presence of God that human efforts cannot replicate. Once you feel it, you know that you’ve experienced the divine, something outside of yourself, and the hunger and desire for more of His presence becomes a constant, driving us evermore to be in fellowship with Him.

Feeling the presence of God and being in fellowship with Him is akin to someone who’s been color blind all their life seeing color for the first time, or someone who is deaf suddenly hearing a symphony. You can’t help but be in awe. You can’t help but be enraptured. You can’t help but react to something so wondrous as knowing that you are in communion with the eternal God and creator of all that is seen and unseen.

That the God of the universe would make Himself available to one such as I day or night, without limitations or a specific number of minutes, is still something I’m humbled by every morning during my quiet time. It is a grace and an honor I’ve done nothing to deserve, and there is nothing I can do, were I given ten lifetimes, to feel entitled to it.

It’s not as though God is trying to ingratiate Himself with me, or has some ulterior motive for making Himself available. It’s not as though He’s just humoring me until He gets something He wants from me. His only desire is an authentic and sincere relationship with His creation, and He goes out of His way to make it a reality every day.

It’s an odd thing to consider that some feel put out by the few minutes they spend in prayer every morning, while the One who keeps the universe orderly is more than willing to meet them where they are and have fellowship with them. We each have the same access to God, and no one jumps to the head of the line based on pedigree, reputation, or ethnicity. If you knock, He will open. If you ask, He will give. If the desire of your heart is to know Him more, He will make Himself available to you, and you will know Him in all His wondrous love and mercy.

To those who still insist that prayer is wasted effort, doesn’t work, and that all the experiences others have had with God during their time of worship were merely anecdotal, all I can say is that just because you’ve never experienced something personally, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, or is not a reality for countless others.

Perhaps it’s pride, or a superiority complex that allows some to conclude that if they haven’t experienced something no one else could, but whatever the reason, the root cause is still rebellion and an unwillingness to obey God’s dictates.

It can’t be real for anyone else, because it’s never been real for me. But why? Have you ever pondered that all-important question? Why has it never been real for you, when it has been real for so many others? Is it perhaps because you never committed to prayer the way you ought? Is it perhaps because when you did pray, it was within the context of trying to get some selfish want to materialize?

If Jesus went out of His way to insist upon prayer, then by that fact alone, we can conclude that prayer is not a futile endeavor or something that bears no fruit. Even when it feels like hope is slipping through your fingers, even when everything seems to be going the opposite of right, even when you’re hanging on by a thread, Jesus said you ought always to pray and not lose heart.

It would be a cruel thing indeed for Jesus to have spoken these words knowing that they were no more than window dressing, empty, vapid, and without an anchor. It would even go so far as to call His love into question, given that false hope is more destructive in the long run than no hope at all.

We know, however, that this is not the case. Jesus demonstrated His love for us by going to Calvary and giving His life that we might have life. We know that if He told us to pray and not lose heart, it was for a purpose, and not merely because it sounded good at the time. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Do as He commands, and you will know His presence. Spend time with Him, and know what it is to have life and life more abundantly.         

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.