In 1921, Thomas Edison wrote, “We don’t know the millionth part of one per cent about anything. We don’t know what water is. We don’t know what light is. We don’t know what gravitation is. We don’t know what enables us to keep on our feet to stand up. We don’t know what electricity is. We don’t know what heat is. We don’t know anything about magnetism. We have a lot of hypotheses, but that is all.” And even today with our more advanced technologies, we still don’t fully understand many of these things. However, we continue to make use of them even though we don’t fully understand them. And, the more we make use of them and learn from our use of them, the better we grow in our understanding of them.
Well, a lot of christians today don’t spend much time in prayer. They make excuses like, “I don’t know how to pray” or “I don’t know what to pray for.” However, the Bible answers both of those questions. In Matthew 6:9 Jesus said, “Pray, then, in this way:…” as he instructed His disciples via what is commonly called “the Lord’s prayer”, and in Philippians 4:6 the Bible tells us, “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
We may not fully understand prayer and how to pray, but that shouldn’t stop us from praying. In fact, that should drive us to our knees more often so that we can learn how to pray by praying more! Just like anything else in life – the more we do something, the more we learn about it and the better we become at it. Take for instance a concert pianist. A concert pianist can hold the attention of a large audience by the beautiful music he plays seated at a grand piano. However, did he just sit down at a piano one day and stop his hands running up and down the keyboard and viola! beautiful music!? No, he sat down and learned to play by practicing MUCH practicing.
And that’s the same way we learn to pray – by practicing! By praying about everything. By pouring our hearts out to Almighty God and seeking Him with all of our hearts.
Andrew Bonar said, “0h brother, pray; in spite of Satan, pray; spend hours in prayer; rather neglect friends than not pray; rather fast, and lose breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper – and sleep too – than not pray. And we must not talk about prayer, we must pray in right earnest.”
The Bible tells us in Luke 18:1, “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
Don’t say, “I don’t know how to pray!” Just start praying! The more you pray – the more you’ll learn how to pray!