DAVID HATHAWAY - Teach Us How To Pray

In Luke 11, when Jesus had finished praying, one of His disciples came to Him, “Lord teach us HOW to pray!” All my life I’ve been seeking to understand the power of prayer, prayer that gets an answer. Anyone can pray.

In Russia one former army officer said to me, “I fought in the war under communism, people did not believe in God, they were not allowed to believe in Him, but when the bullets started whistling round their ears and they realized how close they were to death, they all cried out to this unknown God or help!” In a crisis even unbelievers will cry out and pray. It is easy to pray like this, but it’s harder to have a relationship with God.

All my Christian life, I’ve not only wanted to pray – I learnt to pray as a child – but I wanted to know how to get an answer to prayer, how to find power with God, so that when I pray, God will answer. As a boy in school every morning we had ‘assembly’, when we sang a hymn, someone read from the Bible and we would repeat the Lord’s Prayer – but I could not say it with them, the boys around me were not praying from their hearts, the words meant nothing to them, they were talking to the air, not to God, they did not know God – and they even changed the words to blasphemous ones.

“Lord, teach us HOW to pray!” In answer Jesus replied, “When you pray, say, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” For many years, after my school days, I could not say these words, because to the boys at school it was just meaningless repetition. But after many years there came a time in my life when I understood what it meant.

Thirty four years ago I was arrested for taking Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and put in a communist prison: the sentence for bringing Bibles was 5 years, and because I was preaching the Gospel in the prison, that was another 5 years. I could have been there 10 years! I did not want to spend 10 years of my life in prison, in a foreign country! I desperately wanted to learn how to pray, because I wanted to see a miracle happen: I did not want to stay in the prison, I wanted to be free, to do the work of God.

Things were difficult in the prison in Czechoslovakia where I was, and in the first few months it seemed as if God did not answer any of my prayers. When I prayed for food, there was none, when I prayed that my wife would come, she was not allowed a visa to visit me – it seemed that every prayer that I prayed, God said no. I began to despair. We had to get up at 6.00 every morning and sit on a wooden stool with nails for hours every day. It was torture.

In the first 6 months I wasn’t allowed out of my cell – my food and my toilet were in the cell. I lost so much weight. When we were woken early I would try to pray in those early hours before the guards would bring the mouldy black bread and foul tasting, drug laced, drink which was our only breakfast. I remember that one morning when I had been 3 months in that cell, I desperately cried out that I could not pray anymore because, I said, “Oh God, every time I pray, You say no! When I want the food parcels my family send, or a visit from my wife, or for me to be found not guilty in the court and be set free, always the answer is no! I don’t know how to pray anymore, everything I ask for, it’s no!” I sat there, not knowing what to do. “Oh God, if you don’t hear me, I’d rather die, because life has no purpose, no meaning if You don’t answer me.”

While I was still saying, “Oh God, I cannot pray anymore”, I remembered the words in the Bible (I had no Bible in the prison – it was forbidden) where Jesus said, “When you pray say…” – and I began hesitantly to say those words, “Our Father” – but I as I did I began to argue, I cannot say “our”, that’s plural – but I’m alone in here, no family, no friends, no believers, how can I speak in the plural? I have to say MY Father. Suddenly I knew the reality of those words, He’s mine, He’s my Father and He’s mine! Then I came to the next part, ‘Who is in heaven’. Then I argued, Yes, You are in heaven, but I’m in a stinking filthy cell, don’t You understand? Joy, happiness, glory – that’s in heaven. But I’m down here – and then I remembered the truth – You sent Your Son – You only had one Son – and You sent Him down to this earth, He was in a prison cell like me. Yes, God was willing, not only to let His Son die, death is easy, but He was beaten and tortured – why – because God loved me! He allowed His Son to suffer – for me! How could I complain?

And then I realized, God is not just in heaven, He’s here, in this prison cell with me! Suddenly the glory of that revelation flooded my soul. I began to understand who God is.

David Hathaway

Prophetic Vision USA