Prayer Shaped by Our Need or God's Promises

In the now famous video of Pres. Harrison explaining the three fold emphasis of witness, mercy, and life together, he makes a small comment on prayer.  He says we know not how to pray because we know not the promises of God.  It is a very small portion of his entire presentation but a powerful one, indeed.

Most of our prayers are shaped by what we perceive to be our need.  We pray out of our troubles and trials.  We pray out of disaster and calamity.  We pray out of guilt and shame.  We pray out of fears and doubts.  We pray out of despair and death. We pray out of the same things but experienced in the lives of others.  We know those needs well because it is in this world of need in which we live.  We believe we know these needs better than anyone so it is often difficult for us to pray "as God wills."  We live with the haunting fear that God does not know our needs as we do and God will not give us what we think and what we know we need.  We often find it a betrayal of prayer to lay out all that we have determined is needed and then to end it all "in accordance with God's will."   After all, is not the whole function of prayer to make known to God our needs as we see them? 

I am sure I am not the first Pastor to be asked "why do you bother to prayer for someone on the sick list when you end that prayer 'in accordance with Your will, O Lord?'"  The person was earnest in his protest.  Surely, when we defer to God's will, we betray what it is that we have come to the Lord to ask.  In my early years as a Pastor, there were folks influenced by the charismatic movement who would urgently seek two or three others to "agree with them in prayer" so that what they asked for would be certain to be received from God.  In one tragic instance, this involved a young girl afflicted with cancer.  Her "prayer agreement" was for healing but when she died her family questioned the value of prayer and eventually fell away from the faith.

Such issues are often overcome by praying from God's promises.  When our prayers are shaped by what God has promised to bestow (as well as by our need), we stand on the firm ground of grace that is not in doubt but firmly pledged and promised.  If in worship the surest word we speak to God is the Word He has spoken to us, then this is even more true when it comes to prayer.

Someone once asked me why our petitions in the liturgy seem to pray for the same things every week (the church, her ministers, the nation, our leaders, the sick and suffering, the dying and those mourning, our worthy reception of the body and blood of our Lord, our faithful stewardship of His gifts, etc...  They suggested that it sounded as if we were praying for the same things because we never got them in the first place and so we keep harping to God for the same things, week after week after week.  But of course, we pray in the liturgy for those things which God has promised to give to us as well as the particular needs that change from day to day (the sick, for example).

I often think that how we understand prayer has been so influenced by the evangelicals and pentecostals that it bears almost no resemblance to the prayer we are bidden to pray in Scripture.  For surely the Our Father is meant not only as the prayer we pray as God's people but the prayer that shapes our own lives of prayer.  In this prayer we pray from God's promises -- what God has pledged and promised to give us in grace.  About these things we are not in doubt.  So such prayer is not the earnest but uncertain petition of a people who do not know how God will respond to their prayers but the confident request of God's people for the Lord to grant us what He has already pledged and promised to do.

It seems to me one the best things about Luther's explanation to the Our Father in the Small Catechism is that he frames out each petition within the context of this promised grace.  Truly Pres. Harrison is right -- we need to be in the Word of God in order to help our prayers and we need to learn to pray from the vantage point of those promises so that our lives of prayer might not only be earnest but rich and full.  In this respect, it might actually be an outgrowth of his own bidding to pray from God's promises if we take up the call to pray the Litany in our daily Lenten prayers.

How to pray the Litany:
(1) Set aside a time and a place for quiet meditation and prayer.
(2) Calm yourself and prepare yourself to pray in silence before you begin.
(3) If you are with others, choose one person to say the “L” parts and then all join in on the “C” parts. If you are alone say/sing each part.
(4) Kneeling is a helpful posture to assume when praying. If this is not possible, use whatever posture is most helpful to you.
(5) Use any, or all, of the concluding prayers, in the same manner as the Litany.

THE LITANY
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: have mercy.
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: hear us.
L: God the Father in heaven.
C: have mercy.
L: God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: God the Holy Spirit,
C: have mercy.
L: Be gracious to us.
C: Spare us, good Lord.
L: Be gracious to us.
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: From all sin, from all error, from all evil;
From the crafts and assaults of the devil; from sudden and evil death;
From pestilence and famine; from war and bloodshed; from sedition and from rebellion;
From lightning and tempest; from all calamity by fire and water, and from everlasting death:
C: Good Lord, deliver us.
L: In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment:
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: By the mystery of Your holy incarnation; by Your holy nativity; By Your baptism, fasting and temptation; by Your agony and bloody sweat; by Your cross and passion; by Your precious death and burial; By your glorious resurrection and ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter:
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: In all time of our tribulation; in all time of our prosperity; in the hour of death; and in the day of judgment:
C: Help us, good Lord.
L: We poor sinners implore You
C: to hear us, O Lord.
L: To rule and govern Your holy Christian Church; to preserve all pastors and ministers of Your Church in the true knowledge and understanding of Your wholesome Word and to sustain them in holy living;
To put an end to all schisms and causes of offense; to bring into the way of truth all who have erred and are deceived;
To beat down Satan under our feet; to send faithful laborers into Your harvest; and to accompany Your Word with Your grace and Spirit:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To raise those who fall and to strengthen those who stand; and to comfort and help the weakhearted and the distressed:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To give to all peoples concord and peace; to preserve our land from discord and strife; to give our country Your protection in every time of need;
To direct and defend our president and all in authority; to bless and protect our magistrates and all our people;
To watch over and help all who are in danger, necessity, and tribulation; to protect and guide all who travel;
To grant all women with child, and all mothers with infant children, increasing happiness in their blessings; to defend all orphans and widows and provide for them;
To strengthen and keep all sick persons and young children; to free those in bondage; and to have mercy on us all;
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: To forgive our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers and to turn their hearts; to give and preserve for our use the kindly fruits of the earth; and graciously to hear our prayers:
C: We implore You to hear us, good Lord.
L: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
C: we implore You to hear us.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: have mercy.
L: Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,
C: grant us Your peace.
L: O Christ,
C: hear us.
L: O Lord,
C: have mercy.
L: O Christ,
C: have mercy.
L: O Lord
C: have mercy. Amen.
THE OUR FATHER
C: Our Father, who art in Heaven….
One or more of the following Litany collects may be spoken or chanted. You may use as few or as many, as your devotion suggests.
L: O Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
C: Do not reward us according to our iniquities.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, You desire not the death of a sinner, but rather tha we turn from our evil ways and live. Graciously spare us those punishments which we by our sins have deserved, and grant us always to serve You in holiness and pureness of living; through Jesus, Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C: Amen.
OR
L: Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name.
C: Deliver us and pure away our sins for Your name’s sake.
Almighty and everlasting God, since you govern and sanctify the whole Christian Church by Your Holy Spirit, hear our prayers for all its members. Mercifully grant that, by Your grace, we may serve You in true faith; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one god, now and forever.
C: Amen.
OR
L: O Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.
C: Do not reward us according to our iniquities.
L: O God, merciful Father, You have promised to hear the prayers of all who in repentance call out to You. Graciously hear us so that all evils which beset us may be of no avail, that we, Your servants, may evermore give thanks to You in Your holy Church; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C: Amen.
OR
L: O Lord, enter not into judgment with Your servant.
C: For in Your sight shall no man living be justified.
L: Almighty God, You know we live in the midst of so many dangers that in our frailty we can not stand upright. Grant strength and protection to support us in all dangers ad carry us through all temptations; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C: Amen.
OR
L: Call on Me in the day of trouble.
C: I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.
L: Spare us, O Lord, and mercifully forgive us our sins. Though by our continual transgressions we have merited Your chastisements, be gracious to us. Grant that all these punishments which we have deserved may not come upon us, but that all things may work to our everlasting good; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
C: Amen.

HT to Cyberbrethen and Paul McCain