In college it didn’t take me too long to learn what the term “prerequisite” meant. When I looked through the academic catalogue—yes, that was in the day when you actually had only a paper copy to look at—I saw some courses that were quite interesting that I wanted to take right away. However, immediately following the bold-typed title and course number was the word “prerequisite,” followed by a list of the courses that I had to have completed before I could take the ones that looked so intriguing to me.
That taught me that there weren’t any shortcuts to getting to the classes I really wanted to take. Despite what I thought, I wasn’t quite ready to jump into that material yet. I had some other material I needed to grasp first.
It’s like that in many things in life, including prayer.
Not long ago I found this prayer principle while reading a familiar passage. Take a look at I Peter 5:5b-7: “for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
I’ve known verse 7 by heart since I was a child, and I often quoted it to myself during my teen years and later in life as a way to try to release anxiety and find peace in prayer.
But something that I’d missed until recently was the context of the verse, which every good Bible student should know is important.
Leading up to this verse on giving over our cares to God, we learn that before we can get to that “good stuff,” we have a prerequisite. We must have other knowledge before we can really know the peace of putting our cares on the Lord.
In this chapter, Peter is admonishing elders to care wisely and lovingly for their flocks and to not do it by lording over others, which was the common way they saw people lead, but to lead as servants. They, and all the flock, were to clothe themselves with humility toward one another.
The reason? God opposes the proud. Yikes! That means if I come to prayer with an attitude to resist what God is doing or to battle and rage against whatever trial that I want to cast on Him for peace, then I have totally missed the prerequisite!
Before I go to prayer to bring my burdens, I need to bring myself low before God, to stop striving over whatever is troubling me, to accept His Lordship over my life and situation or anyone for whom I am praying. I need to purposely abase myself before Him, ready to accept His will.
So much for rushing into the Throne Room with my list of things I want fixed and the worries I want taken away! If I can’t humble myself first, then I am missing the point and the peace.
Now when I come to prayer, I try to make a conscious effort to humble myself before Him. After all, this verse does say to humble yourself—no one can do it for you.
That sometimes means actually getting on my knees in my living room. Or if I’m putting up a so-called dart prayer throughout my day, in my mind I picture myself on my knees. This way I remember that I must not rush into my prayers for what I want fixed without acknowledging every time that He is the Creator and I am the creature.
So help me, God, to abase myself…so that grace can abound.
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