What would you say if a young person was to come up to you and say: ‘My prayer life is rubbish, how can it be better?’ The great Church reformer, Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) was asked the same question in 1535 by his barber. Luther’s reply became one of his favourite things he wrote. To understand why you need to know a bit about Martin Luther.
Martin Luther became a German Catholic monk when he was 22. As a monk Luther was angry with God for demanding righteous standards that he knew he could never live up to. He tried many things to appease God, but always felt a failure, and got angrier with God every time. And then one day, as he read Romans 1:17 his eyes were opened to see that God provided a righteousness for Him not on the basis of his own goodness, but as a gift in Jesus Christ. ‘I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through gates that had been flung open,’ he said. This realisation transformed Luther’s life and ministry and brought him into conflict with the Church of the day, ultimately sparking the Reformation which transformed the world. Because of his experience Luther became eager that everyone –whether his barber or the prince of Germany– came to pray for themselves, knowing God welcomed their prayers through Jesus’ righteousness.
So when Luther’s barber asked him how he could grow in his prayer life, Luther wrote this eleven page letter back. Luther’s advice is quite simple. Warm your heart through dwelling on God’s words to us in scripture, come to him trusting he wants you to, and pray through the Lord’s prayer and the Ten Commandments. This is probably not where we’d naturally start when giving advice to our young people on prayer, but it’s immensely helpful. The structure of the Lord’s prayer gives clear focus, and Luther shows us how he works through each section in his own prayer times. Sprinkled throughout the letter are gems on the nature of prayer and our relationship with God.
Why seek it out and read it? Well, at eleven pages it won’t take you long, but more importantly it’s full of great pastoral advice. Luther writes to a regular guy in the street busy with life, and writes from a place of humility. His says that this is what he does when ‘I have become cool and joyless in my prayers’; he doesn’t pretend his prayer life is great. And for us youth workers, often struggling with busyness and a lack of joy and warmth in prayer, it’s great tonic for us. So when your young people ask you how they can improve their prayer lives, you can tell them about Martin Luther and his barber and how he taught him to pray.
A Simple Way To Pray by Martin Luther is available online as a pdf for free.
