Praying in a Certain Place
Luke 11:1-13
Praying in a Certain Place
Rev. Dr. Anette Rihovsky
LNPC July 27, 2025
Do you remember who taught you to pray? Or do you remember how long you have had prayer filled life? Prayers are so powerful, they can move mountains, change things from despair to healing, and it can humble us as the more we spend time in prayer, the more we change from inside out. I remember when two years ago I stood right here in this spot, my sermon was about prayers. I thanked you for praying for my grandson’s miraculous healing. Here now I am standing in this same spot again, and what am I preaching about? Prayer! It makes me wonder what Jesus felt when he was praying in a certain place.
That’s no coincidence, but I don’t take any credit for that, that’s all ordained by God. I preach by the Lectionary and today’s Scripture text just happens to be from Luke 11, which is about the Lord’s Prayer!
Almost everyone that I know prays, some only pray before a meal. Some pray in the morning, and some pray at night. Some pray when there is an emergency, some pray when they are sad, and some only pray when they are driving in the express lane on the 405 freeway! Hopefully with their eyes opened!
And then there are some who pray without ceasing, the real from the heart-authentic prayer warriors that are right here in this church. When I need some real big time 100% prayers, I put it on your prayer chain here at LNPC! That usually takes care of it! That’s exactly what I did a few months ago when we had another medical crisis in my family. I called right from the oncologists’ office, need the prayer warriors to take over and pray! We have felt your prayers.
Prayer is like having an ongoing conversation with God, the One who created this whole universe. The One who created each one of us in His image, and said it is all good. That’s the type of prayers I am talking about today.
Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he said “when” you pray. He didn’t say “if” you pray. He knew that all humans at some point in our lives will pray, it is the language of communicating with God. He says we are to pray with confidence and without any fear, and trust that God loves to answer our prayers, even more so than a parent who loves to give their children what they ask for. God can give, and do so much more than a parent can, more than we can even imagine or dream about.
Prayer is of the essence to our hearts, minds and souls, we draw closer to God, it gives us divine peace, hope and reassurance that God is with us, in the here and now and that we belong to Him. We are not here to fend for ourselves.
What prayer is not is that of a divine candy machine. It is not to ramble of a laundry list of some sort to tell God to give me, give me more! So, when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them, we too ask the same question. “Jesus, teach us how to pray” It is not as if his disciples hadn’t prayed before, because they prayed a lot, more than most people. They were devout Jews, so they prayed the Shema twice a day, and about another 18 prayers every single day. So, it wasn’t like they were brand new to praying, but yet they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray because they wanted more than the standard ritual prayers they had been doing. They were seeking the real attitude in prayer.
It’s not about using long and eloquent words, or if we raise our hands, or if we pray on our knees, its not really about that at all. Everyone has a different and unique style that works best for them.
Prayer is about an attitude of humility and trust. Do we trust God, that He will do what is best for us, and to provide what we need? Maybe not what we want, but what we need. If you are like me, perhaps you too have moments in time when you are so grateful for not getting what you had prayed for, what you wanted at the time, but later changed your mind. I have moments when I say, “Thank You Lord for not listening to me ” And then there are times, we I am overcome with deep gratitude for God providing more than I could ever have imagined.
Some of you with good memories will remember a story that I shared during my “TBIYTC workshops” and it is worth hearing it again, Besides, you might not remember so it will be like a new story to some of you.
Some years ago, an elderly woman, let’s call her Mary. She was a believer, and had been having the best day at her place where she lived at a board and care, she had played bridge with her girlfriends, and they shared a great dinner afterwards. It was sometime after she had gone to bed that she had a traumatic medical episode, in a split second she was face to face with Jesus. Instantly, she was embraced by a love she had never felt before, a peace that was more than she had ever experienced on earth. She was embraced by the arms of Christ. She knew she was finally home in eternity, and she was just praising God for her eternal life. “Praise God, I am in heaven” she said. It would be great if Mary’s story ended there, because she was already at her end of life, and so ready to be with God. When we leave here, our life continues in eternity, and that’s what she had looked forward to her entire life.
However, someone at the B&C called 911, CPR was done, and she was brought into the Emergency Room. They got a faint pulse from her, she was put on life support and brought to the Intensive Care Unit where she was artificially kept alive for a couple of weeks. Then out of the blue late one evening in the ICU, someone was yelling “help me” “please help me” so we all ran towards that room where this adorable little lady was. Since Mary had not been awake for two weeks, it was a bit of a shock hearing a voice coming from that room.
Once we all got to where the voice came from, Mary was sitting up in bed holding in her hand all the breathing tubes that had kept her alive for the past two weeks. She somehow managed to extubate herself, which is something a clinical medical trained expert usually does, not a patient’s job to do, ever!
She was not a happy camper, nothing like “yeah, praise God, I am still alive” “Thank you all for keeping me alive” Nope, nothing like that at all. She was mad, really mad. Instead, she yelled, “Well, this doesn’t look like heaven” “I was seeing Jesus face to face, and I was so happy to be in his presence” “Now, you people took me away from heaven, away from where I had waited to be my whole life”
She was disappointed, mad, sad, and kicked everyone out of her room, except “you” -she pointed her finger at me. “You need to pray for me, now” It didn’t sound like when someone ask for prayer, it is usually done in a much nicer way than how she did it. Her request was more like a command!
She had been so overjoyed that she was in the presence of Jesus with love, peace, and eternal hope surrounding her. Something she had been waiting for. Now she was going back to her board and care, that’s no heaven!
I told her about God’s perfect timing, it wasn’t her time yet, but one day it will happen. She wasn’t impressed. Then she firmly took my hand in hers, and said, “you need to pray, now” So, I prayed for her, prayed for God’s love and healing, and for God’s will be done.” As soon as I said, “Amen” she opened one eye, looked around the room and said, “Well, that didn’t work, I am still here” Then she went back to yelling, “Please someone help me get back to heaven”.
Prayer is not intended to influence God, but to allow God to influence us. We don’t come to God with our agenda when we pray, we trust that God knows what is best for us, and I have come to find that it is all in God’s perfect timing, not our timing.
So often we think that God gets impressed by what we say, how the words are crafted together. That does not impress God at all, because he is far more interested in our hearts when we pray. When we come to God with humbled hearts, are honest in our prayers, that’s when God answers our prayers. What we say, what comes out of our mouths must match what our hearts are saying. Sometimes we might not even be able to use any words when we pray, we might be heartbroken, or we might be going through a tragic health crisis that makes it difficult for us to focus on words. Whatever it is, it does not matter because God hears and sees our heartfelt prayers. You can rest assured of that.
I read a recent study that revealed that most Christians pray for less than one minute per day. That’s weird because if you want to have a relationship with someone in your life, do you spend less than a minute with them? Or do you want to spend as much time as you can with them?
Spending time with God is THE most important relationship we will ever have so only spend less than a minute a day in communicating with him is not going to do it. The same study also revealed that Christians wanted to spend more time with God, but they were simply too busy to pray, and they did not know what to say to God. So, they simply didn’t pray at all.
Some think they have to use perfect words in order to communicate with God, but it’s not about words, it’s about the heart. You can’t fake what’s from the heart.
Real prayer can’t be faked either, when we realize the deep need we have for Jesus, so it is with a humbled heart we ask for help. “Ask, really ask, and it will be given to you” “And keep on asking”
“Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
That is a beautiful image of God’s door of mercy and grace being open wide for each one of us. As Jesus tells us to pray like this, he too must be praying to God, the Father like that. Praying like Jesus reminds us that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, that God is here with us, not far away someplace.
Some say we should not even bother to pray for the world because it’s useless. That’s not true because God is still at work in this broken world, there is still more to come. It is not over yet. We haven’t seen the ending yet. Prayer is seeking God’s way to establish God’s kingdom and do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.
As believers we must realize that a lot of people see things differently. Not everyone shares that prayers are powerful and the only way to communicate with God. We accept God’s Word as the source of truth; we build our lives on the Rock that never changes.
Just like God’s love for you never changes, you are his beloved sons and daughters, and you have been given the gift of prayer, the gift of communicating with the Creator. It is a two-way communication, not a one-way dialogue. Praying like Jesus is uniting our will with the will of God. It is desiring the same thing that God desires for us because He knows us so much more than we know ourselves. God hears you when you pray, trust that He desires more for you than you do.
When we were in Sweden a couple of weeks ago, I preached at my hometown church in Mora on a Sunday morning. As I was standing there on that same spot in a certain place where I so many years ago was baptized, took my confirmation, and got married. As I stood there again, and recited the Lord’s Prayer-in Swedish, I thought this can only be by God’s grace, forgiveness and redemption. The power of praying for 45 years! And it made me wonder what Jesus felt when he was praying in that certain place. Together we are on Holy ground when we pray. May it be so. Amen!