W. Aubrey Alsobrook: Five fingers of prayer

W. Aubrey Alsobrook

(Reprinted by request, according author)

There are five passages of Scripture that express the five fingers of prayer. Dr. Edwin Lewis makes an important suggestion about prayer: “We must find the Presence throughout the quiet hour if we are to keep it throughout the noisy hour.” We need the quiet hour when the noise of the world is shut out and God speaks to us in the depths of our hearts.

ADORATION

“O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together” (Ps34:3) is a call of the Psalmist to adoration and praise of God. This is the first finger of prayer. Mary was overwhelmed by the great thing that God had done for her. From her heart came a prayer of adoration and praise.

The prayer of adoration is the prayer that opens the gates of the soul to God. Gerhard Ebeling in his book on Prayer writes, “Prayer is turning to God.” The prayer of adoration was frequently upon the Psalmist’s lips. The prayer of adoration pulls us to our knees and we see what great things God has done for us.

Confession is the second finger of prayer, and it naturally follows adoration. The prodigal son said to his father, “Farther, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called you son.” (Luke 15:18-19). The son’s prayer of confession came from the depth of his heart.

David said to the prophet Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Here there is no attempt to cover up or put the blame on someone else. In confession one wants to be right with God.

PETITION

The third finger of prayer is petition. In the prayer of our Lord there is the petition, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt.6-10)

Prayers of petition may cover a wide range of needs in our lives. John Baillie says, “if a thing is bin enough to worry about, it is big enough to pray about.” A good test of whether something is big enough to worry about is to take it to God in prayer. In the presence of God, things have a way of coming into a better focus. Often what appeared to be major matter becomes less so when we have taken the time to lift it up to God in prayer.

INTERCESSION

The fourth finger of Prayer is intercession. Think of the diagram of a straight line. God is at the left end of the line and the person interceding is in the center and the person for whom one is praying is at the other end of the line. In such a position one prays for God to use him/her in some way to answer the prayer of intercession.

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don not know how t pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” (Rom. 8:26). Victor Frankl, who was a prisoner of the Nazis during World War II tells of his release. Soon after his liberation he was walking through the country passing the flowering meadows. The he dropped to his knees and there was one sentence that kept racing through his mind. “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and he answered me in the freedom of space.” From that moment on he knew what it was to be human in the sense in which he was created.

THANKSGIVING

The fifth finger of Prayer s thanksgiving. Gratitude is recollection of what God has done for us. The Psalmist wrote, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him bless his name.” (Ps 100:4). Thanksgiving is an expression of our gratitude to God for his blessings. Gratitude is being what God calls us to be.

God is able to bring good out of what appears to be a bad situation and for this we can be thankful. Paul wrote, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom.8:28). Paul did not mean that everything is good, but he did mean that the love of God in one’s heart works that which is good.



W. Aubrey Alsobrook, a retired United Methodist pastor, lives in Americus.

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