“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 NIV)
I’ve got a list of things I want to ask God about when I go to heaven someday. Maybe you do too. Perhaps that list includes strange natural phenomena or historical mysteries. No doubt it includes plenty of “why” questions.
For all their faults, mistakes, and missed opportunities, the disciples of Jesus did manage to ask him one good question. They asked him plenty of questions about how or when or why or what. But here they asked him to teach them. What a novel concept! Jesus, the Son of God, a rabbi after all, being asked to teach them something.
Do we overlook this opportunity? We can busy ourselves with mysteries we’d like solved and quandries we’d like resolved and fail to get around to perhaps the most potent questions of all.
Jesus won’t always tie up some of life’s lose ends the way we want him to. But I imagine that a request to learn something about our life in him is always welcome.
Good for the disciples recognizing an opportunity and asking the most important question: “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your example of a prayer-filled life in your earthly ministry. Teach me to pray. And when you teach me, help me to follow through and practice your lessons. Amen.
Guy M Williams 