How to LEARN how to pray!

Download the first official youthcure podcast How 2 Learn 2 Pray (Rough Edit Pre-Release) for a powerful lesson from Luke 11 on the process of learning to pray. (NIV).

Disclaimer... this is not intended to be professional... just a tool to help you learn to pray. This podcast will be rereleased in a couple of days with a better mix. Specially featured in the background is my one year old son. See if you can hear him rattling some pans and lettin his voice be known. Reading scripture is my inherited son. Click "comments" below to let me know what you think about "learning to pray."
All tracks created in garageband. (copyright 2005 by decrease, flower, and tiger productions)

In Luke 11 we discover 3 principles in learning how to pray...

1. BY SEEING.
1 One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."
2He said to them, "When you pray, say:
" 'Father,[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.[b]

Jesus had just finished praying. The Disciples, probably in amazement at the prayer life of Jesus, ask their Master to teach them how to pray. So instead of starting out with a lecture. Jesus gives them a model prayer. He prayed an example for them. The disciples mainly learned how to pray by SEEING Jesus pray.

2. BY DOING.
5Then he said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 6because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.'
7"Then the one inside answers, 'Don't bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can't get up and give you anything.' 8I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness[e] he will get up and give him as much as he needs.
9"So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Jesus is basically telling the disciples... "you want to learn how to pray... just do it. BE BOLD AND ASK. Don't worry about the lingo. God doesn't care about that. Don't worry about bothering God. He will never be too busy for you. God just want you to be bold and ask. The verbs in the last part can be translated... ask and keep asking... seek and keep seeking... knock and keep knocking... SO PRAY AND KEEP PRAYING... DO AND KEEP DOING.

The way you learn how to ride a bike is by just doing it. You don't read a book. You might get a push off. You might start out with training wheels. Basically you learn by doing. In the same way you learn to pray by doing it. And the more you pray the more comfotable praying you will become. And like riding a bike. You can't forget how to do it!

3. BY KNOWING
11"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for[f] a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

The third key to learning how to pray is knowing... not knowing facts, not knowing memorized words, but KNOWING SOMEONE... KNOWING GOD. Prayer is relational. Simply put: It is talking with God. And the more you experiently know God, the more you will talk with Him. For example... the first essential characteristic of God that you need to know about God is that He is our Heavenly Father (once we have been adopted into His family when we have accepted him as Lord and Savior.)

And just as Father provides for his kids all good things... so does God love to hook us up and meet our needs.

So if you want to begin to learn to pray...
1. Learn by seeing
2. Learn by doing
3. Learn by knowing