prayerless

“Prayer”- A Book Review

by Liviu Berghian

Ole Kristian Hallesby, the author of Prayer (1931) was born in Norway, in 1879. He also wrote Why Am I a Christian (1930), and Under His Wings (1932). Ordained in his twenties, he acquired his doctorate and become professor of systematic theology at the Free Faculty of Theology in Norway around the age of thirty. His life was not free of extreme circumstances as he has known the ravages of the World War II—when he was arrested and even placed in concentration camp until the end of the war (Hallesby, 1994, 178).

“To pray is to let Jesus come into our hearts” (1). Prayer is the result of Jesus knocking at our door. Rev. 3:20 “behold I stand at the door…” He wants access to our distress, to come in and do the work. The simplicity of these statements makes me at the very beginning doubt what I found later to be the very essence of the book: To pray is to let Jesus into our hearts. The rest of the book for me was both the proof and the reason these words were indeed true. The meaning of prayer, the difficulties, the work, and the wrestling we find in prayer, reveals to us the importance prayer plays in the life of a Christian, just as the misuse and the problems that surely occur reveal to us how easy it is to fail in this great task.

Prayer is present in the soul before words reach our mouth. Whether it takes the form of words or not, it doesn’t mean anything to God. But, first condition for God to listen is that we need to be utterly helpless. “Only those who are helpless can truly pray” (18). “Your helplessness is you best prayer” (19). And then again: “Helplessness is the very thing that opens the door to Jesus to have access to our needs” (22).

Jesus initiates prayer. He calls us to Him. He knocks on our door. He wants an answer from us. If we say “Yes”, He comes in to do the work of salvation, healing, restoration. If we say “No”, nothing of what I described will ever become reality. In other words, God does not bless us unless we open ourselves up to Him. We could also say that Jesus starts the dialog by asking us to let Him in. He stands at the door and knocks (Rev. 3:20). When we say “Yes”, we pick up the phone.

After helplessness, faith is the next ingredient in the life of prayer. “Helplessness united with faith produces prayer” (28). “True prayer is the fruit of helplessness and faith” (30).

Faith does not help Jesus move, but merely believes that Jesus can move on our behalf. Prayer should be the means by which we receive all that we need—including joy, consolation, refuge, etc—thus it should be a very important activity in our lives (38).

Thus, “you have not, because you ask not” (James 4:2 NIV) probably applies to all of us every time we see ourselves in real need and bondage of some kind, where practice and perseverance in prayer is the answer.

We need to ask the Spirit of Prayer to teach us how to pray.

Among wrong attitudes we find: having the impression that we must or should help God somehow to fulfill our prayers. A great example we are shown is the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus at the Cana of Galilee weeding!! She merely told Jesus what the problem was, and left everything else up to Jesus. All we can do is tell Jesus our needs in prayer, and the needs of others in intercession.

Another wrong attitude is telling Jesus what to do… when… how… etc. This struggle with God is what makes us anxious and restless in our prayer life. We have not learned to trust God for our needs and wait for Him. God is not moved as to when or how He is to do His work. He tells Mary “women, my time has not come yet”. Prayer should serve one thing only, and that is to open ourselves to Him in helplessness and faith. Praying should feel easy and welcomed when we learn to rely on God for our needs; we should leave up to Him the “when” and “how”.

“Prayer is the most important work in the Kingdom of God” (70). Pray for leaders, as much as for ordinary/individual people. Pray for church (for preachers, pastors, evangelists, deacons, laymen), for the city (mayor, police, elected leadership), nation, and the whole world (remember the great commission). Pray for revival starting in our own houses, then our neighborhood, our city. “It takes trained workers to do the boring. Anyone can light the fuse” (77).

Prayer is also labor, work, and we are all called to cultivate this ability to “pray without ceasing”. If prayer does not precede, and accompany the work of the Kingdom, it will all become wearisome human work, which will eventually die or become useless (81). “Let us pray for the spirit of prayer” (87).

Since prayer is such an essential part of our Christian life and so important for our spiritual health, our prayer life becomes a target of spiritual warfare just as soon as we commit ourselves to it. If Satan can weaken our prayer life, he is willing to do so in order to render us ineffective in our Christian walk. Satan also has a reputable ally right within ourselves: our old self. Our “old self” realizes that every time we come in prayer he has one route of escaping mortification, and that is by distracting us from prayer.

Much of the wrestling in prayer then it is a wrestle with ourselves; therefore we need to keep in mind that “the flesh lusts against the spirit”, through thoughts, head images, or anything that can distract us from the purpose of talking to God. We must remain open to Jesus and “give Him access to our needs”; especially one that we can never overcome in our own power: our old selves. We need to let Christ control and captivate our minds in order to succeed in this battle.

This battle is especially evident when we try to make prayer a habit, a discipline rather then a whenever-available, whenever-possible duty. Whenever this battle is won, what we get is definite and regular quietude. The necessity of a battle against ourselves in order to practice prayer results in quietude, which helps us hear the voice of God.

This is also where we can finally talk to God and be ministered by God. “In quietude and solitude before the face of God our souls can hear better than at any other times” (98).

But great wrestling occurs within these quite hours when Jesus reveals to us something we need to get rid of and we don’t want to obey. Then, we close our hearts toward the voice of the Spirit, and unless we open and let God lead us out of trouble—which requires repentance and forgiveness—we may for the most part sever ourselves of the life of the Spirit.

The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Prayer, and prayer is to let God into our hearts. When we shut the door to prayer, we shut the door to the Spirit of God to minister to us. When we open the door, we invite God to come in to clean the place out. “All wrestling in prayer must bring us into harmony with the Spirit of Prayer” (100). The wrestling in prayer therefore becomes the means through which God renders us impotent and helpless physically and spiritually in order that we may become utterly dependent on Him, and that our prayer may become a prayer for the Spirit of prayer (100).

Wrestling in prayer is however not a wrestle with God for wining a certain price or blessing from Him. God “gives generously to all without finding fault” (James 1:5 NIV). The problem may however arise when we indeed try to make God bless us, without realizing that God may want to give more than we may ask for and at a different time. If we do not understand the goodness of God we are indeed prone to battle with God himself over our own misunderstanding.

Our own selfishness and love of ease are aloes hindrances to the spirit of intercession. Perseverance in prayer is also one that can create a battle in us as well.

Fasting is one efficient way to render our flesh weak, and free us from the distraction of material things for the purpose of uniting with Christ in prayer. It helps us keep our eyes on what the Lord may tell us to do in all these exceptional circumstances and also helps us remain pure in our thoughts and motives. Without watching—fasting plays a key role in this—we can very easily become pray to our own desires when we pray.

Prayer then is inviting God to work in our life, and in the life of our friends, neighbors, etc. The solo purpose of prayer is that God might be glorified in and through our lives. Therefore, when we pray to God according to His will we can have the assurance that He will answer our prayers in His own way and in His time. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15 NIV). When we do pray like this, then we have peace and we are in harmony with the Spirit of prayer. “To strive in prayer means in the final analysis to take up the battle against all the inner and outer hindrances which would dissociate us from the Spirit of prayer” (115).

Because prayer is a personal encounter with God, a personal conversation, the way we pray varies accordingly. First of all, our prayers should be uttered freely and spontaneously, as it would obviously be the case in any vital relationship. Therefore, some may quietly converse with God; other may cry in supplication; some may rejoice exceedingly in thanksgiving; some may suddenly exclaim giving praise to God, while other may rest in the Lord, praying without words. While these prayer types are all valid, they all occur differently in the life of the believers and certainly not uniformly.

As a last attempt to simplify to the minimum this great subject of Prayer, Hallesby

reminds us that the most important aspect in our prayer life is the necessity of praying for the Spirit of prayer. Whenever disheartened, weary, struggling, or in trouble of any kind with prayer, he compels us, begs us to pray for the Sprit of prayer. It is quite easy to realize that the Spirit of prayer in none other than the Spirit of God, who is here to teach, remind, rebuke, and lead us toward to goal of glorifying God.

If there is one thing that truly both puzzled me and taught me a great deal about what prayer is, was Hallesby’s emphasis on Rev. 3:20. As Hallesby would say over and over, prayer is nothing more than giving into God’s attempt to come into our life. The more I read, the more sense it has made into my life. We indeed do not know what to pray for, for “the Spirit intercedes for us”, and even more than that, we don’t know the answer. All we do is invite Jesus to take control over our life. That does not mean that once we have opened ourselves to God the job is done. The most difficult thing will be to keep ourselves open to what God may tell us, and obey Him, so that the line of communication never becomes blurry or interrupted. Worries, controlling attitudes, sin in our life, inconsistency in prayer, our own selfishness, are all ingredients which can both disturb and/or cut out our communication with God, thus rendering our Christian life useless and impractical.

The book “Prayer” had certainly had a way of incrementally, yet powerfully transforming my own understanding of what prayer is, what prayer does and how it actually works. I certainly did not know much about prayer—although I grew up in the Church and have prayed all my life—and I certainly needed a great deal of correction—for I have made every mistake about prayer Hallesby describes in this book.

What really encouraged me throughout the book was not only to open myself in prayer to God, but to give the Spirit the opportunity to reveal Christ to me every day. This really opened my eyes and my heart to what Jesus is doing in my home and in my church, thus prompting me to pray for myself, my family, and also intercede for my pastor and the members of my church like I never did before. This book simply meant more “prayer” for me.

Parenthetical Reference

Hallesby, Ole. 1994. Prayer. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress.