A National Day of Prayer

On April 16, 2010, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison-based group of atheists and agnostics. She found that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

Thursday, May 6, 2010, America still recognized a National Day of Prayer.

Whether President Obama and his administration support a National Day of Prayer or the Supreme Court finds it to be unconstitutional, it doesn’t really matter. We are still going to pray in our churches. We are still going to be on our own.

Even when you pray along, you are never alone.

Jesus often spent time praying alone. After feeding the five thousand, Jesus went up on a mountain to pray alone. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus left the disciples and went a little way by himself to pray. Throughout the Scriptures we find accounts of men and women who went up on a mountain or off by themselves to meditate upon God’s Word and pray. There is a great benefit in sitting back, removing yourself from the commotion and distractions of life. That way you can truly listen as God speaks to you in His Word and you speak to Him in your prayers. You admit what troubles you, confess your sins and thanking Him for His blessings which are new every morning.

You may be by yourself, but you are never alone.

But you, like me, must admit that this is not a natural practice. It is hard. It is humbling. It is pushed down on the priority list.

We should isolate ourselves so we may speak to God in prayer. Unfortunately, all too often we isolate ourselves from God. So we do not speak to Him in prayer.

How do we break this cycle of improper isolation?

Keep it simple: Use devotional materials like Forward in Christ, Meditations, or Luther’s Small Catechism. Hopefully you are using this blog as part of your daily devotion life. A great help is praying through the Psalms and the verses of hymns in Christian Worship. Hymns and Psalms are prayers set to music.

Connect prayer to God’s Word: Lutherans understand that prayer is not a Means of Grace. We do not feed our faith with prayer. God’s Word and Sacraments strengthen our faith. Prayer is an expression and a resulting action of that faith. We listen to God speak to us in His Word and then we speak to Him in our prayers. It is a holy conversation. That means that when you pray alone, you are never really alone.

Make a list: Don’t let busyness and distractions drive your prayer items out of your head. Write down your prayer requests so you can remember to pray for specific people or things. A good reminder for prayer is JOY – Jesus, Others, Yourself. We don’t have any trouble praying for ourselves, so put yourself last. Thank Jesus for His blessings. Pray for His kingdom work in our church, Synod, and the world. Then pray for others. Pray for our nation and its leaders. Pray for your called workers – pastors, teachers, and missionaries. Pray for your community. Pray for your family and friends. Then finally pray for yourself.

Remember that Jesus prays for you: Jesus is our Great High Priest. He is in heaven interceding for us right now. Even when we do not pray very often or very well, Jesus is praying for us.

Whether we have a National Day of Prayer or not, isn’t all that important when it comes to our individual lives. The key is to just keep on praying. Pray with your family. Pray at church. But also go off by yourself to pray. Let God speak to you so that you may speak to Him.

Here is something that Dr. Martin Luther wrote about prayer in his section on the Lord’s Prayer in his Large Catechism:

“For this we must know, that all our shelter and protection rest in prayer alone. For we are far too feeble to cope with the devil and all his power and adherents that set themselves against us, and they might easily crush us under their feet. Therefore we must consider and take up those weapons with which Christians must be armed in order to stand against the devil. For what do you think has hitherto accomplished such great things, has checked or quelled the counsels, purposes, murder, and riot of our enemies, whereby the devil thought to crush us, together with the Gospel, except that the prayer of a few godly men intervened like a wall of iron on our side? They should else have witnessed a far different tragedy, namely, how the devil would have destroyed all Germany in its own blood. But now they may confidently deride it and make a mock of it; however, we shall nevertheless be a match both for themselves and the devil by prayer alone, if we only persevere diligently and not become slack. For whenever a godly Christian prays: Dear Father, let Thy will be done, God speaks from on high and says: Yes, dear child, it shall be so, in spite of the devil and all the world.
- Luther’s Large Catechism, Part 3, The Lord’s Prayer