If we go looking in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, we find plenty of references to Jesus praying … for sick people, for enemies, for the people of Jerusalem, when seeking God’s guidance. Jesus prayed a lot!
Yet the way that Jesus prayed was apparently quite distinct from how other Jewish people of his era prayed, which the disciples noticed. So one day they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray in a similar way. Jesus’ response is what we know as the Lord’s Prayer. This short prayer provides a pattern for our praying – starting and ending with a focus on God and God’s character, simple, honest about ourselves, focusing on genuine needs, and learning to see the world and other people through God’s eyes. And doing all this in community (the language is all plural … ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’).
Jesus goes on to speak of the need to persevere in prayer and that God gives us good things in response to prayer. But we know that praying is not easy and often prayers seem to go unanswered. At such times, perhaps we are part of the answer, or prayer is designed to change our perspective. However we view prayer, it seems that it was important for Jesus and it was assumed that his followers would follow his example.