Prayer: Seeking God's Will

What is prayer? The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines it this way: "Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies" (Q98). In today's Christianity, this view of prayer often seems to be the exception, rather than the norm. Some Christians today need to recover a biblical sense of prayer, especially in regards to praying things "agreeable to [God's] will".

The third petition of the Lord's Prayer directs us to pray "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven". Unfortunately, in both my private prayers and in public prayers the attitude sometimes seems to be "My will be done", even if not stated quite so blatantly. This, obviously, is opposite of the way it ought to be. Prayer is to be a response to God revealing himself through the Word. Therefore our prayers should be guided by what we know about God and his will from his Word. Oh, may we recover a sense of what it means to ask things according to God's will!

Additionally, I sometimes hear people say "Let's just have a quick word of prayer". While there is obviously nothing wrong with praying a short prayer, sometimes I feel that the attitude is one of flippancy and carelessness. When we come to prayer, we need to understand exactly what we are doing. We are approaching God. God has allowed us to present our desires to him for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ. Prayer is not something that we tack on in order to make something Christian. It is a God-given privilege to approach him, and we must not treat it lightly. On the other hand, we must remember the command in Ephesians 6 to pray at all times in the Spirit. Do not neglect prayer because you are so privileged to have it; use it for seeking God's will and the advancement of his kingdom, all to his glory!