A Conversation With Your Father

A Conversation with Your Father

Your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:8-10

Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night.

Luke 6:12

The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

Romans 8:26

Imagine a relationship between a parent and a child in which the only time they talk is when the child asks the parent for what he or she wants. The child is uninterested in hearing what the parent wants or getting wise input or pouring out his or her thoughts and feelings to mom or dad.

That’s what it’s like when our prayers to God are only a list of what we want or what we want God to do. It’s easy to get into the habit of praying that way—asking him for what we want and need, without talking to him about what he thinks is important. God our Father wants prayer to be more than a wish list; he wants it to be a conversation. He wants to hear what’s on our hearts—what we’re concerned about, what we’re happy about, what we’re confused about. But he doesn’t want us to do all the talking. He wants us to listen to him speak through his Word and sometimes directly to our hearts as we pray. He wants us to set aside our self-focus and talk about what he is doing in the world—and to welcome it and celebrate it. He wants us to offer ourselves to him to be used for his purposes.

When we pray the way Jesus shows us to pray, acknowledging our relationship to him, we find that welcoming his work comes ahead of giving him our list of wants. Praying this way puts our wants into proper perspective.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

What is prayer?

If God knows our needs before we ask, why does he want us to ask?

How might your family pray together differently if you used Jesus’ model for prayer (see Matthew 6)?