In all four Gospels there is only one thing the disciples ask Jesus to teach them - ‘One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray”’ - Luke 11:1.
The reason the disciples asked Jesus about prayer is because he modelled it. He would pray in front of them and also retreat to quiet places just to pray. Jesus would even pray through the night. Prayer is such a major part of following Jesus because it’s through prayer that we can have a relationship with God.
The disciples spent around three years with Jesus and you can imagine they probably asked him to teach them loads of things! So, it’s significant that the main thing they wanted to record when writing the Gospels was the importance of learning how to pray. It highlights two things about prayer 1) Prayer is really important 2) We need to learn how to do it.
Fusion teamed up with 24-7 Prayer and created the P.R.A.Y. Deck to help students engage with prayer. It splits prayer into four categories: Pause, Rejoice, Ask, Yield. It’s an amazing resource which can help anyway begin to pray. You could buy your friend a P.R.A.Y Deck and show them how to use it.
Similarly to the second blog where we talked about helping someone cultivate their own space to read the Bible, you can help them make prayer part of their daily routine too. That gives them the ability to make their faith more personal and less dependent on you. Your church might also have worship and prayer events which you can invite your friend too. This could be a great way of showing them how other people pray.
Prayer is a huge topic in itself and it will take someone's whole life to begin scratching the surface of understanding what prayer really is. The key is that it’s not a spectator sport so encourage your friend to dive in, pray big prayers and small prayers, go for it and see what happens.
