The Prayer of Life

12While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."
13Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately the leprosy left him.
14Then Jesus ordered him, "Don't tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them."
15Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:12-16


Emerson said that, “Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view.” Philips Brooks claimed that, “A prayer at its simplest definition is merely a wish turned heavenward.” Donald Coggan, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, said that, “To pray is to stand at attention in the presence of the King and to be prepared to take orders from Him.” These are all correct, of course, but I sometimes believe that praying is not some type of “spiritual exercise” which like a daily vitamin ensures better health; or like a special skill which through practice we can hone to perfection. Prayer is both of these but also something deeper and simpler. What I call the “Prayer of Life” or “Ordinary Prayer” is more closely woven into the very fabric of our existence. When we are in tune with God we are praying with much of what we do and most of the time. Without such prayer we would be as unable to live as without water or air.

This type of prayer is almost unconscious and the sustenance of a soul preoccupied with God and His work. It is the easy and natural outworking of the Holy Spirit within our bodies, operating to turn every action into God’s purposes. The great Victorian preacher, C.H. Spurgeon puts it this way: “I cannot help praying. If I we not allowed to utter a word all day long, that would not affect my praying. If I could not have five minutes that I might spend in prayer by myself, I should pray all the same. Minute by minute, moment by moment, somehow or the other, my heart must commune with my God. Prayer has become as essential to me as the heaving of my lungs and the beating of my pulse.”

In the passage above we see the essential nature of prayer to Jesus. He made everything look so easy – after all He was the Son of God! But perhaps it was not all as easy as we sometimes seem to think with modern perspective. I believe that the teaching, the healing, the persecution of the religious officials, the inexorable pull of the cross must have been draining at the best of times and sometimes completely exhausting. Prayer was for Jesus the opportunity to take time away with His Father and to recharge. He could offload on the only one who could truly understand him.

We see only snippets of this prayer time in the gospels so we have to look carefully: Jesus returning to the disciples after having been up early praying, a quiet break by the well when the disciples went ahead to prepare lunch, a pause before facing the distraught sisters of the diseased Lazarus. Was Jesus praying as he drew in the sand while the Pharisees cried for the stoning of the woman caught in adultery? Did he send up an arrow prayer when the blind man required more than a single healing touch? Did he need to ask for patience as Peter misunderstood once again?

In any event, we do see signs, as in the passage above, of the continual dialogue between Jesus and his Father. A dialogue not confined to particular times of the day; not confined to particular geography or even a particular pattern of prayer. Jesus needed as much of the Holy Spirit as he could contain - being filled and refilled. Jesus needed constant communication and spiritual nourishing from his Father throughout the day and throughout his ministry. If he needed this, how much more should we also need the same?

Mike Clarkson