A "Certain" Prayer

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. He said to them, "when you pray, say:
"'Father," hallowed be you name  your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And leads us not into temptation.'" 
(Luke 11:1-4 NIV)

I often catch myself lingering over words as one would linger over some new feature on a familiar landscape. There is a large vacant field behind the Walmart at Walker Springs and there is a mailbox on a post right in the middle of it. Why? There are no buildings; there is no access road, just a mailbox. Why is it there? What does it mean?

The word in question is "certain" in today's passage. Why does it say that he prayed in a "certain" place. He had to have been in a certain place, as opposed to several places at once (though Jesus could have pulled that off if you consider whole omnipresence thing). But Luke clearly is up to something with this word because it's not the first time he used it. In the story of the Good Samaritan there is a "certain" lawyer."There is a "certain" man who was traveling to a "certain" village. In the story of Mary and Martha there was a "certain" woman.

All of these "certain" people and places would play key interpretive roles in Jesus' journey toward Jerusalem.  This "certain" place where Jesus had paused to pray is the location where Jesus shared with the disciples a "certain" way to pray in the prayer that follows. In Jesus' day it was common for teachers to share particular prayers or patterns of prayer with their disciples. Apparently John the Baptist had given his disciples a prayer, so Jesus' followers wanted one.

So what is the pattern that emerges from Jesus' prayer? If I might borrow a neat acronym from the Alpha course we offer twice each year, Jesus has given them a pattern that can be summed up with ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Jesus suggests that whenever and wherever we pray we include praise and adoration to God, the Father, a confession of sins, thanks for all that God provides (which is always just enough every day), and supplication, or simply asking God for help with particular needs.

When we pray this way we find our selves moving, not to a certain physical location, but to a certain spiritual and emotional location. Jesus' prayer can move us from a place of anxiety, frustration, despair, guilt, (name the places where you get stuck emotionally and spiritually) to a certain place of peace that flows from our certain place of humble submission (in the highest sense of that word) to a loving Father who will tenderly listen, speak, and comfort.

Do you have a "certain" place to pray? Wherever that may be, consider the pattern of the Lord's Prayer as a way of moving to a "certain" place of intimacy with the God who will always find us, wherever we are.

Blessings,
Larry