Dangerous PrayersSample

Active Engagement

Today's Scripture reading is from the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ that Jesus Christ gave to the disciples and us as a pattern of prayer. It is seemingly safe and innocuous, used by almost all believers, and given to children as a ‘starting point’ for prayer. It’s a beautiful but dangerous prayer.

Please let me share how I recently came back to this simple prayer. I have come to a place where, if unable to sleep, I can meditate on God or pray. However, because of the increasing turmoil in the world, I began to feel overwhelmed at the sheer size of the ‘need’ for prayer for those facing incidents and accidents across the globe.

I eventually decided to ask God what He wanted, and I would pray ‘Lord, what do you need today?’, which looped me back to praying—‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' This is where the prayer gets dangerous because ‘if taken to heart’ (Deuteronomy 4:39) we are asking the Lord to use us to be the answer to ‘His needs’ for those who need Him.

These prayers are not meaningless platitudes but passionate, active engagements with God, seeking to be available to Him, to somehow be the answer to what is in His great heart. These are ‘top down’ prayers starting with the magnificence of God, not ‘bottom-up’ prayers caught up with inexhaustible need.

Can I encourage you to start your prayers afresh today with the words ‘Our Father, … holy (awesome) is Your name,' and see what He does through you?

Written by JOHN SCOTT