BEFORE YOU CAN PRAY
Selected Scripture

There are prerequisites to almost everything in life, even with things that should come naturally, like running. There are prerequisites to running.

BEFORE YOU CAN RUN …

You have to roll before you can crawl
You have to crawl before you can walk
You have to walk before you can run

Now, I know that there are those who always try to skip a step. My oldest son John Mark did not crawl much. He was comfortable rolling everywhere. Loree and I would put toys just out of his reach hoping he would crawl to them. But he would just smile, drop and roll. At times I thought we had given birth to Curly of the Three Stooges, as he rolled in circles on the floor to get whatever he wanted. My youngest son Lee, on the other hand, did not walk long. He wanted to run. I saw this coming the first time we sat him in one of those round walkers with wheels. He moved so fast, it looked like a hover craft. Though neither of my sons spent the normal time crawling or walking, they spent some time doing them before they eventually ran.

There is a principle here. Though my boys were created to run, they had to go through various steps before they could do what was natural. I believe everyone has been created to pray. However, like running, you have to go through certain steps before you can do what comes naturally. The following are the steps you will need to take before you can run in prayer.

Confession:
You have to be holy before God
before you can have a relationship with God

The first step is a step of confession, for you will have to be holy before God before you can have a relationship with Him. This is evident in the interaction between God, Adam, and Eve in Genesis 3:8-24. Verses 8-9 set the tone,

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Adam and Eve have sinned against God. Though they were created in God’s image, that image was marred by sin. Verses 10-24 outline the consequences for their sin. The final consequence was to be cast out of the Garden of Eden. Since Adam and Eve were no longer holy before God, God could no longer walk with them.

The Bible says in Romans 5:12 that Adam’s mar has become everyone’s mar. Because Adam has sinned all have sinned. Just as God could not walk with Adam, God cannot walk with you until you have confessed your sins. Before you can pray to God as God intended, you will need to return to the condition with God that God intended. You need to be holy and unmarred before God. Until you do that, your prayers will be ineffective because you and God will be walking and talking on two different channels.

With the advancements in cable television and satellite disks we have lost the unique programming provided by UHF channels. As a child, I would get frustrated as two signals would compete for the same channel. Oh, it was amusing at first to see Lassie running after Rocky and Bullwinkle. But eventually, it became frustrating because I could never get a clear picture, a consistent story, or single message. For the same reasons, your prayers to God will be ineffective.

When God is holy and you are not, you are both walking and talking on two different channels. This makes it hard for you to hear God and God to hear you. Now, God is not about to become sinful just to talk with you, but He will give you the opportunity to become holy so that you can walk and talk with Him. That opportunity is called confession.

In 1 John 1:9, the Bible says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The Greek word for “confess” literally means “to say the same.” It means to agree with God. In confession, you agree with God that your sins have marred you and separated you from God. In confession, you agree that since you have sinned against God, you will need to ask his forgiveness. In confession, you agree that God can and will forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness – as long as your confession is an act of repentance and not just penance. Penance is doing something because you are sorry for some sin. Repentance is turning from every sin and committing everything of your life to God.

When you make this kind of confession, you become holy before God. You and God are now on the same channel and can walk and talk together. Confession returns you to the condition to do what should come naturally – to pray with God.

Commitment:
You have to have a relationship with God
before you can spend time with God

Though confession is a major step, you are not ready to run with prayer yet. You need to take the next step, the step of commitment. You have to commit yourself to a relationship with God in order to spend time with Him. Without commitment, there is no relation, and without the relation there is no prayer. Jesus points to this in Matthew 6:5, 7, 8. Before Jesus provides His model prayer, He provides two examples of what prayer is not.

5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full…. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

Prayer is a Relation not a Reputation
In verse 5, Jesus identifies those who pray in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen as religious. They pray to have a reputation with God, not out of a relation with God. All prayer should come out of the overflow of your relation with God. As John Bunyan wrote, it is a matter of the heart.

John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress, was put in jail for preaching without a license. After twelve years, he was released in 1672 and resumed his preaching only to be jailed again three years later. He did not have much opportunity to pray in public, but it seems he had several opportunities in life to listen to those who did. Therefore, Bunyan wrote,

In prayer it is better
to have a heart without words
than words without heart.¹

Prayer is a matter of the heart. It is to come out of a relation with God, not for a reputation with God.

Prayer is a Relation, not a Recitation
In verse 7, Jesus refers to the prayers of the pagans. Some of the Jews in Jesus’ day, like other Eastern peoples, would repeat a prayer-like mantra to enter a mindless state. The prophets of Baal did this in 1 Kings 18:26 as they danced around their sacrifice for half a day repeating, “O Baal, answer us!”

I could imagine what my wife Loree would do if all I said for half a day was, “Loree, answer me; Loree, answer me; Loree, answer me; Loree, answer me.” Not only would she think that I had lost my mind, but she would get away before she lost hers.
You may think your prayer is not a mantra. However, if your prayers at church all sound the same, and your prayers before meals all sound the same, your prayers have become a mantra. If you can say your prayer without thinking, you are offering a recitation to God and are not praying out of a relation with God.

In Matthew 22:37, Jesus said the greatest commandment was to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” God not only wants your condition to change to become holy like Him, He also wants your commitment to change. He wants you to give yourself wholly to Him. He wants all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind. God will know if you have given this kind of commitment to Him by the way you talk with Him.

Constant:
You have to spend time with God
before you can build trust in God

Through a changed condition and a changed commitment you may feel closer to God. Yet, you are still not ready to run in prayer with God. If you want to know how to pray, you will need to spend time praying. Constant prayer is a must, for you have to spend time with God before you can build trust in God.

All who have taken giant strides with God know the importance of spending time with God in prayer. Moses established his tent of meeting with God in Exodus 33. He could have never led the people to the Promised Land had he not had this constant place where he talked with God as friend to friend. David could have never dropped Goliath and built a kingdom had he not had his time with God as a shepherd boy in the hills of Bethlehem. Even as an old king he wrote the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.”

Look at Jesus. Jesus could have never started, worked, and completed his ministry without constant prayer. He started it after forty days of prayer and fasting (Matthew 4). He worked it by making time to be alone with God early in the mornings (Mark 1:35). And on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus prayed the most agonizing prayer of His three-year ministry—“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). That is why in Matthew 6 Jesus separates His two examples of how not to pray in verses 5 and 7 with this requirement of prayer in verse 6,

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

I love the King James Version of this verse. It says, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet.” A closet is one of the only rooms in the house where you rarely allow people inside. Seldom do you hear someone say, “Oh, you must see my closet. Here, step inside with me.” Usually if you are in a closet, you are there alone. Thus in Matthew 6:6, Jesus is saying when you pray, get alone with God. Then in Luke 18:1, Jesus encourages you that when you step from the closet, keep talking with God. If you quit talking with God you will stop walking with God.

Joni Eareckson Tada explains why a commitment to constant prayer is a prerequisite to becoming a man or woman of prayer. She says,

Like art, like music, like so many other disciplines,
prayer can only be appreciated
when you actually spend time in it.²

If you want to be a strong athlete or artist, you spend time working at it. If you want a strong marriage, you spend time working at it. If you want to become a strong man or woman of prayer, you have to spend time working at it.

Here is the priceless return of constant prayer. When you work at prayer, prayer will work on you. Constant prayers give you better prayers because constant prayers give you a greater confidence in God—and confidence in God is the final step before running in prayer with Him.

Confidence:
You have to build trust in God
before you can run in prayer with God

One of the more tragic pictures of prayer is given in the book, The Kneeling Christian. It tells of worshipers at a shrine in China. They have come with their prayers written on small pieces of paper. The prayer papers are then covered with mud, rolled into balls and thrown at the idol representing their god. If their prayer ball sticks, their prayers will be answered. If they do not stick, their prayers will be rejected.³

According to Hebrews 11:6, God does not require you to cover your prayers in mud so they will stick and be answered. He does, however, require you to cover your prayers with faith. The verse reads,

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

God says before you can run with Him in prayer, your prayers need to be covered in faith. You need to believe that God exists and that He rewards. Believing that God exists does not just believe that He is out there somewhere. If you believe He rewards, that means you believe He has the authority and ability to reward. Therefore, you do not believe that He merely exists. You believe that He reigns and because He reigns, He also rewards.

When you trust the reign and rewards of God, you will experience an invaluable confidence in prayer. When you pray, you will have

• …Confidence in the person of God. You will trust His perfect and unchanging character.
• …Confidence in the plans of God. You will trust His will and way even though you may not understand.
• …Confidence in the promises of God. You will quote Scripture in prayer, not to hold God to His Word, but to thank Him for His promises.
• …Confidence in the provisions of God. You will trust that “God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

When I have counseled newlyweds, I have told them to protect the trust they have in each other. In a marriage, trust is synonymous with peace. The same is true of your relationship with God. Your degree of faith in God is the degree of confidence you have in prayer. The degree of confidence you have in prayer is the degree of peace you have in life.

Is It Worth It?

Like running, most think that praying is easy and should come naturally. A closer look reveals that only a life of confession, commitment, constant prayer and confidence in God can allow you to run with God in prayer. Yet having heard all that is required, you may ask, “Is it worth it?” Let me answer that with the following experience.

For our twentieth wedding anniversary, Loree and I went New York City. One site we wanted to see was the Empire State Building. We were directed downstairs and stood in line in a hallway to get our tickets. The line seemed short so we waited. What we did not know was that our line in the hall turned into a room with rows upon rows of people weaving back and forth to buy their tickets from two tellers. But because we were at the Empire State Building, we were too excited to turn back so we continued to wait.

Finally after purchasing our tickets, Loree and I bolted free from the room, were directed to an escalator and were on our way up. Our smiles disappeared when we found ourselves in a hall, against the wall, waiting in another line. It was a line for the metal detector. Thirty minutes later, we walked through the detector without a beep. Now, with the elevators just ten steps away, an attendant says, “Go to your left, please,” where we walk into another room of ropes and lines. It was funny two lines ago, but now Loree and I are getting grumpy. But our mood changes somewhat when we finally get into the elevator and are on our way up. Now, the viewing deck of the Empire State Building is on the 86th floor. Our elevator stops on the 80th floor and another attendant says, “Step to your right, please.” This is our largest room and longest line yet as we wait for an elevator to take us the last six floors.

By now Loree and I are beyond grumpy. We have now spent half a day in line and have seen nothing but halls, rooms and one elevator. Both of us said if we knew it would have taken all this time and effort we would not have done it. It just was not worth it. But finally, we made it to the top and it took our breath away. We could see so much and so far. In the distance we saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We saw the Chrysler Building and Central Park. When Loree and I walked the sidewalks of New York City, they were congested and fast-paced. But from our new view, everything seemed calm, pressure-free, almost simple.

Looking back, the journey to the top was harder than we thought and took longer than we wanted. Because we had never been there before, there were many times Loree wanted to turn back. But after reaching the top, seeing what we saw, and experiencing what we experienced, Loree and I would go through it all again because the journey is worth it.

You may think that having to confess your sins to God, commit your life to God, constantly pray to God, and develop your confidence in God is asking too much—to simply pray. In your mind, what I am asking is too hard and will take too long—just to pray. But I am not talking about just any prayer experience. I am talking about reaching the heights with God in prayer--seeinglife from God’s view where you can see so much more and everything has a different pace and different perspective. If you have never had such an experience with God you may not think the journey is worth it. But take it from those who have been there. It is more than worth it.