Lesson 22: Talking with God in Prayer (part 1)

Read: Matthew 6:9-13 - www.bible.com/bible/59/mat.6.esv

What is prayer? In the most simple of terms, it is communication. It is communicating with God. In communicating with other people, we use many different means to either tell or receive information from another person. Of course we use words, but we also use our hands, our eyes, our faces, other parts of our bodies, and even our feet. We call this "body language." Whether we do this consciously or not, we rely on non-verbal communication to understand what the other person is saying as well as making ourselves understood.

This, of course, is different when we speak with God. We cannot see Him, we cannot see His eyes or His face, so sometimes we are at a loss to know how to communicate with God effectively. This affects our prayer life.

We probably understand God can see us, our faces, our hands, read our body language, and completely understand what we're saying, but how do we know we can understand Him? We have to see Him in a different way. The Bible equates Jesus with the Word. In other words, if we want to see Jesus we must look at the Bible, the Word of God. In the Bible we can see His face or hands or body. We can see what He says to us by reading what He said. We ask the Spirit to teach us what the words mean, and He talks with us through the words we read. When we get to know someone well, we no longer have to depend on seeing them to know what they’re trying to say. The same is true with God – as we get to know Him, we understand what He’s saying to us better.


Let's open the Bible and see what we can learn about prayer. Turn to Genesis 4:26; here we find the first mention of prayer in Scripture. We are told Seth had a son and he named him Enosh. If we look up the name Enosh we find it means "mortal man, sick, despaired of, forget all." So Enosh was a sick man. Why does this matter? A little history lesson: Adam and Eve had had two sons, Cain and Abel, who had gotten into trouble. Both were gone now, Abel because he was dead and Cain because he was running after murdering his brother. When Adam and Eve had another son, they named him Seth and believed it would be through him God's promise of Genesis 3:15 would be met – specifically, he would bring, or through him would be brought, this Messiah. When Seth's son was born and he wasn’t a perfect, healthy person, there was despair. In their despair, however, they finally turned to God in prayer.

Isn't this still true of us today? It is often only when we are in despair we turn to God. But that’s not what God wants from us; remember He first communed or visited with Adam and Eve every day as they walked in the garden together.

*What does it take for you to finally turn to God?