Prayer II: Learning to Pray

The Jewish people knew a great deal of the Bible, at least the current Bible in Jesus's day, that's to say, the Old Testament. The most studious Jews learnt by heart ALL the Old Testament. If you've ever boasted about memorizing part of the Bible, next one of them, you won't have a chance!

The disciples, as Jewish, also knew a lot of the Old Testament and, of course, knew to pray; or at least, they thought so, because they came to Jesus one day to ask Him to teach them to pray (Luke 11:1).

I think that when the disciples saw Jesus's miracles, heard His powerful teachings and, above all, when they saw how He prayed, they reflected, got sincere and came to the conclusion that their Master prayed much better than them. They realized that Jesus's prayers were effective and authentic, so they humbled themselves putting all their knowledge aside, and asked Him: "Teach us to pray." In order to be able to ask Jesus "teach us" from the bottom of their heart, first they had to recognize that they didn't know. To be filled, they had to be emptied.

To be able to learn, first you have to recognize that you don't know. If you think you know, you won't be able to learn.

So, what was Jesus's answer? What did He do? Jesus proceeded to teach them. Do you know what this tells me? It tells me that we can learn, because if Jesus would've answered: "You know what, it's too late for you guys because you know already too much and it's hard to re-teach somebody", "this is for just a few selected people, and you're not one of them", or if He just would've said: "No, I don't want to teach you", then we could be sure that learning to pray is something that we'll never get. But it wasn't like that! Jesus taught them to pray because He knew that they could learn! And so it is for us!

Do you want to learn to pray like Jesus? Ask him to teach you! Put all your knowledge aside, your experience, studies and pride so you can learn. Remember that He gives grace to the humble (James 4:6), and be sure that He'll teach you like a Father to a son. Just say to Him: "Jesus, teach to pray."

Hope this may helped you!