June 5th, 2024
In a series of sermons on the Lord’s Prayer, Helmut Theilicke captures our misunderstandings about prayer** by using an illustration about a night watchman. The sermons were delivered during the Allied bombing campaign of Germany near the end of WWII - so curfews, blackouts and night watchmen were a reality of their daily lives. We imagine ourselves shouting “Who goes there?!”, interrupting God as he passes by on his way from one thing to another. But, Pastor Helmut points out, this isn’t true at all. In this illustration, God is the watchman, and we are the passersby.
Our pursuit of God through prayer comes about when God uses both good and bad circumstances to interrupt our lives. To call us to prayer and ask “who goes there?” So we might state our business before him to be known by him. I have found this reorientation extremely helpful. If my prayers are an interruption to God’s work, then I will always pray anxiously. But if God’s call to prayer is an interruption to my distracted life then I can accept the invitation to rest in his presence by offering up my thanks, needs, and heart to Him.
You might be thinking: “That’s why I don’t pray often - God doesn’t interrupt me much!” The petitions in the Lord’s Prayer show us where God’s interruptions can be seen. They are in our need for God, our yearning for the world to be different and better than it is, and our need for provision, forgiveness, and discipline. Jesus taught us to pray for and about these things, because he knows our needs and the Father’s heart to provide for them.
Reflect
Time in the Word is a means of grace because God reveals his character and plan in the pages of the Bible.
Prayer is a means of grace because our confidence in God’s character as revealed in the Bible motivates us to disclose ourselves back to Him as we share our thanks, needs, and hearts in prayers of worship, gratitude, supplication, and intercession.
**I am intentionally addressing the means of grace in order of word, prayer, and sacrament to reflect the balance of personal and corporate Christian life.
—Matt Allhands
