His intimate and often practice of prayer brought Jesus into sweet communion with God, his heavenly father. And his praying served as the perfect teaching tool, placing in his disciples’ hands a sure and certain onramp to daily life in God.
Like fruit-bearing branches streaming from a common vine, Christ-followers actually get to see their lives as extensions of his own. They are a band of humble pilgrims anchoring into a new identity. Having become God’s reborn sons and daughters they quickly catch on to the fact that apart from Jesus they can do nothing. Nothing at all. He has become their life source. The Holy Spirit helps keep Jesus ever before their eyes. And, as with priceless treasure discovered in a field, no obstacle on earth will stop them going after it.
So it is that God’s unimpressive tagalongs – his precious apprentices – are set on a course of blossoming and flourishing. His fruit-bearing emissaries.
This sweet communion with God through the practice of prayer is not a thing reserved for Jesus of Nazareth alone.
I think of Frank.
Long ago a young missionary in Western Kenya confided in me, “All that I have learned about how to pray I learned from Frank.” The young man spoke warmly of his missions colleague and friend.
“Frank didn’t teach me to pray by telling me how to pray. I learned praying by being with Frank when he was praying.”
Apparently, this is how it was with Jesus’ twelve. A longing arose within them that they become pray-ers, because of what they witnessed in their praying Lord. They discerned that their brilliant and beloved rabbi displayed utterly unique qualities. Beautiful and desirable qualities. Like goodness. And joy. And compassion. And humility.
Such qualities, they began seeing, could only be derived from those frequent times he communed in secret with a world they knew little about.
(c)2023 Jerry Lout