PRAYER AND TEMPTATION 2

In my last post I was reflecting on Gethsemane.  Jesus told the disciples to pray that they would not enter into temptation.  Then he went off by himself to pray, seeking the Father’s face and wrestling with the temptation to avoid the cross.  He prayed and the Father sent an angel to him to strengthen him.  But the temptation was not finished.  He continued to pray even more earnestly until his sweat was like drops of blood.  Jesus rose from prayer without falling into temptation.

But his temptation did not stop there.  The crowd had come to arrest him and he could have walked through them and disappeared.  He was led to the house of Caiaphas and mocked and mistreated.  Jesus could have incinerated them with a breath.  Taken before Herod he was treated contemptibly.  He could have stopped their hearts with a word.  But Jesus did not fall into temptation.  He had prayed.  He had been strengthened by an angel.  He walked the path laid out for him.

So what is the connection between prayer and falling into temptation?  First off, we need to consider what Jesus meant by prayer.  If we want to understand this we must look at his prayer in the garden.  Do I pray like Jesus prayed?  American evangelicalism has compartmentalized prayer.  When asked how we are to grow in our faith the pat answer comes forth, “Pray and read my Bible.”  We “say our prayers.”  We pray at dinner and bedtime. 

But do we pray like Jesus prayed?  Do we stay in the presence of God when it is difficult to do so?  Do we practice coram deo, waiting before the face of God?  Do we listen for God’s voice?  Or do we just do all the talking, go through our shopping list of prayer requests, and then get on with our day?

Prayer is being in God’s presence.  The more we are in God’s presence the more we know God.  The more we know God (not about God) the better we know ourselves.  The more we know God the more we love God.  The more we love God the more we leave the world behind.  I remember the words of that old gospel song we used to sing, “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”  The more we know God the more we want God.  The more we want God the less attractive are the things of this world.  It is by investing time in the presence of God that makes us want him more!  Satan can dangle all the pretty things of this world in our faces and we cry, “I want God!  Get behind me Satan!  Your things cannot draw me away from the face of my beloved!  Give me God lest I die!”

This is so much more than “saying our prayers.”  It is so much more than keeping a prayer journal!  It is embracing the God who made us to love him!  It is seizing his robes and hanging on while the world tears at our feet.  And the more we pray, the more often we will sense the help of God the Holy Spirit, strengthening us and encouraging us in prayer!  Our hearts will be lightened and our desires for this world will weaken and die away.