“Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…'” (Luke 11:1)
Wayne Douglas Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all time. No one else really comes close. He holds 57 NHL records, including the most goals (894), most assists (1,963), and most total points (2,857). If you were to wipe away all of Gretzky’s goals from the record books, he’d still have more total points than any other player. Now you know why they call him “The Great One.”
I remember my first time playing against him. It was October 30, 1991. I was playing for the Hartford Whalers as we hosted Gretzky and the Los Angeles Kings. The game was pretty physical. Bodies were flying all around, and the referees were just trying to keep the game from getting out of control. Too late! An all-out brawl broke out on the ice as all five skaters from each team dropped their gloves and grabbed a member of the opposition.
I was matched up with Wayne Gretzky! We grabbed one another as fights broke out around us. I did not want to fight Wayne Gretzky for several reasons. First: IT’S WAYNE GRETZKY! Second: He wasn’t a very big guy at 6 feet tall and 185 pounds. I was about 6-foot-2 and 200 pounds. It was a bad look, and I wanted no part of it.
I pushed Wayne away and attempted to find another, larger combatant. As I skated away, he once again grabbed hold of my jersey and said, “Let those other guys fight it out. You and I can just watch.” Then it hit me: OMG, I’m standing here with Wayne Gretzky – the guy I idolized as a kid. The Great One! We just started talking as chaos ensued all around us. In retrospect, I should have asked him to autograph my stick or something.
Talking with the Great One – that is the essence of prayer: simply talking to God. You don’t have to speak like Shakespeare, using an array of “thees” and “thous.” You don’t have to pretend to be a theologian or someone other than yourself. He wants to hear from you – the real you. Prayer is talking to God about what’s on your heart and mind.
PRAYER BUILDS A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
The Apostle Paul challenges us to “pray without ceasing.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds unreasonable to me – maybe even impossible. I remember trying to pray early in my Christian faith. Five minutes felt like five hours. I ran out of things to talk about very, very quickly. Anyone else?
Hebrews 11 in your Bible is what’s known as the “Hall of Fame of Faith.” All the giants of the faith show up: Abraham, Moses, and David. One character stands out. His name is Enoch:
“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” (Hebrews 11:5)
Apparently, God liked this guy Enoch so much that He simply took him straight up to heaven. No dying for Enoch. What did he do for God to be so fond of him? Let’s go back to Genesis and find out:
“Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24)
That’s it? Enoch “walked with God”? It seems a bit anticlimactic. “Walking with God” is the Bible’s poetic way of saying that Enoch did all of life with God. Everything he did and everywhere he went, Enoch maintained an awareness of the presence of God with him. Enoch learned to “pray without ceasing,” and it pleased the heart of God.
The name Enoch means “disciplined.” Discipline characterized his life. He trained himself to walk and talk with God, to pray, and out of the overflow of that discipline, his relationship with God grew. Prayer spilled over into every area of his life.
My wife, Susan, and I have been happily married for 35 years. If I were to talk to her for one hour a week – only on Sunday – or on Christmas and Easter, do you think we’d have a shot at staying married? Of course not. No communication, no relationship. It’s that simple.
For example, in the UK, the number one reason given for divorce is no longer infidelity; it’s “we fell out of love” [1]. I believe that might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You don’t fall out of love. That would be like me reporting to training camp fat and out of shape and, when confronted by my coach, replying, “I don’t know what happened. I just fell out of shape!” I didn’t “fall out of shape.” No! I stopped doing the necessary training and disciplines required to stay in great shape. “Falling out of love” works the same way. You must discipline yourself to continually cultivate your relationship with your spouse…and with the Lord.
You will never FIND time to pray. You can LOSE time. You can WASTE time. But you will never FIND time. You can, however, MAKE time. Enoch was a disciplined man who made time to pray. His relationship with God grew and grew. He learned to walk with God, and so can we.