Prayer Chair

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then like this: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.' For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
(Matthew 6:5-15)

Are you a good pray-er?  You know what I'm talking about.  When you pray in front of a group, do people reflect on those words and think, "Wow, she's got the prayin' skills!"?  Here's a better question: Do you ever want them to think those things?  Let's be honest; whether we're a bit self-conscious praying in front of others or have it down to a beautiful science, we sometimes lose track of Who it is that we're to be engaging.

First, that's why Jesus says to pray in a quiet little room--a place where only God is and nobody else...a place where we can grab a prayer chair and connect with the King.  It's not that He's against praying in groups (He did that with His disciples before meals and the disciples gathered together to do it after He ascended).  He's simply emphasizing that prayer isn't for show.  Everything that He says in this passage reinforces that fact...

Second, He tells His listeners that it's right to keep in mind the big/main things as we pray.  "God is great.  This is His world.  He's our Provider.  We need His forgiveness and protection.  We need to forgive."  There are other things, given our life situation and circumstances, that are going to fit into that grid as we pray, but those rocks of truth about God's nature and our need are what it should all come back to.  We don't need to wander or aimlessly drift in our prayers when we have anchors in place.

Third, Jesus drew out a certain portion of His example prayer that He knew we needed to give special attention to.  Simply because we get away to pray in a quiet place for that "just God and me" time doesn't mean we're not to have on our minds how we're doing in community life.  Christ knows the messiness of relationships and comes back to that component of His prayer: "You've got to be a forgiver!"  Our nearness to God is rooted in forgiveness and so is our fellowship with our fellow man.  We've got to remember that we will never have to forgive someone to anywhere near the extent that God has forgiven us.  It's as if Jesus was saying, "If you little sinner can't forgive that other little sinner, you can't begin to grasp (or have!) the forgiveness God offers you."  That's not to belittle anyone's pain over what's been done to them, but the statement should magnify the power of God's work in ripping out our utterly dead hearts that were carrying us to eternal destruction and replacing them with pure, life-carrying ones--that's what His forgiveness does.

Hypocrisy.  That's what Jesus warned against at the beginning of this miniature discourse and that's essentially how He ends it.  The call is toward authenticity.  If we're God motivated in our prayers and our personal relationships, that's what comes.  And so these too are among the words that Jesus says we're to build our lives on so that we're ready to stand strong in Him when the storm hits.