APT: Why Your Prayer Life Probably Sucks (and So Does Mine)

Cassie hated me.

Some students are subtle when they don’t like you. They roll their eyes, suck their teeth, or skip your class. Not Cassie.

She told me. “Your class sucks. It’s stupid.”

Her negativity became so oppressive that I dreaded coming to school each morning. I found myself praying, “God, please let Cassie be absent. Please don’t let her come.”

And sure enough, Cassie was right there, sneering at me.

Thanks, God.

Teachers have a lot to pray for. Good test scores. Well-behaved students. Financial provision. Honest politicians. And many of us do pray for these things.

But nothing changes. The kids remain rotten, the test scores plummet, and legislators legislate. Does God ignore us? Does He simply not care? What exactly is the Lord trying to say when our desperate pleas fall on deaf ears?

“It’s hard to pray,” says the foreward to Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. Indeed, it is. Sometimes prayer feels like a Christmas wish-list that nobody reads, buying us socks instead. Sometimes prayer feels like a call for help that no one is caring enough to answer.

But often, prayer is a mumbled duty, an expectation of “good Christians”, so we do it because not doing it would be sinful.

I invite you to wonder with me for the next five Fridays: “Does prayer make any difference? Is God even there?”

“A Praying Teacher” will attempt to answer this question as we prepare for the 2012-13 school year.

Learn how to pray with me. We need to know our Father’s voice.

Learn how to trust with me. We need to depend on Jesus more.

Learn how to live with me. We need to live like we’re loved by the God of the Universe.

Let’s make prayer our best practice this year.

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