Verse of the Day for July 22

These disciples were not new to prayer. They were Jewish men who had heard the psalms since childhood and kept the set hours of prayer. And still, after watching Jesus, one of them asks, Lord, teach us to pray.

Notice when he asks: as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased. He waited. He watched Jesus pray all the way to the end, and something in what he saw made his own praying feel unfinished.

That is permission for anyone who has prayed for years and feels they have forgotten how. You are allowed to start over. Grown disciples did. They even mention that John taught his followers, as if to say, everyone else seems to know, and we want to learn too.

Jesus does not hand them a technique. He gives them a first word: Our Father which art in heaven. Beginning again starts there. Not with getting better at prayer, but with remembering who you are speaking to, and that he is ours, not only mine.

If your prayers have gone stale, say the Lord's Prayer slowly on the bus tomorrow, one line between each stop. Treat it as a first lesson. Many saints went back to it at the end of their lives.

Beginning again is not failure; it is discipleship.

Every fresh start in prayer can begin with the word Father.