**And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place….** Luke 11:1
I don’t know anyone who has a clear understanding of prayer. Yes, we can all go to our favorite verses about it, but none of us really has a good grasp on all that prayer is. I just can’t imagine that it is only presenting a Triune God with our laundry list of requests. It has to be more than that. Because if that is all that it is, well, anyone could and would do it every day, right? Easy peasy.
So, I thought we could take a walk through some verses and see what we can find. There are plenty of books on prayer on any bookstore shelf, so I don’t expect to learn anything completely new, but I am hoping we will go a little deeper in our own understanding and approach prayer with more excitement, or at least more sincerity after doing a bit of study.
So, for today, let’s keep it simple….our verse tells us that Jesus prayed in a certain place. What does that mean to you? Did he always pray in the same place? I don’t think so, because Jesus didn’t stay in one place for very long. So, “certain” doesn’t mean same.
Maybe he had a certain kind of place….well, I know that different scriptures talk about his praying in the mountains, and then there was the garden of Gethsemane. So, that doesn’t seem to be it either.
What do you think?
I guess my thought is that Jesus took some time to find a good place to pray. Somewhere that He wouldn’t be distracted or interrupted. The place wasn’t really the issue, but the quiet was. Jesus was constantly thronged by the hurting masses. He dealt with the pain and illness and fear and desperation of many people. That must have been extremely draining. He must have had a physical as well as a soul weariness. Maybe wherever He went, He scoped out the area and decided ahead of time where He thought would be a good place to get away from it all and have a long talk with his Father. He planned for that quiet time with Him. It was priority number one.
If you talk to anyone in ministry, or medicine or psychiatry or counseling, they will tell you that after awhile, the accumulation of the problems of so many people starts to weigh you down. Of course, Jesus was God, so He had more sustaining power, but He was also limited by his human form. I believe that Jesus was able to do what He did and be who He was BECAUSE of his time in prayer. He needed the extended daily time with the Father to be able to deal with all of those hurting people.
So, he prayed in a certain place. A place where He was certain He would have the time and focus to put all of his needs before the Father? Maybe. I’d love your input…