Genesis 32:9-12.
Recently, the last couple of times I've led this, I've been meditating on some of the prayers that we see in the beginning, especially of the Old Testament. We had looked at a prayer from Abraham and also one from Isaac. And there is the one prayer from Jacob that actually really struck me that I thought had a few things that could teach us that I wanted to focus on. Just by way of context, this is when God had told Jacob now to return from the land of Haran, where he was with Laban laboring for those 20 or so years in that very interesting context. God actually told him to go back to Canaan and he had sent word at this point to his brother Esau and offered a gift to try to appease him. Because, of course, when he had left Canaan to begin with he was fleeing for his life, Esau wanted to kill him. So Jacob still remembers that and he wants to appease his brother. And so this is the last thing we know of before this passage, he finds out that Esau is coming to meet him and he's coming to meet him with 400 men. So just imagine for a moment a little bit of the fear, a little bit of the panic that he must have been feeling. We could even think of this as what sort of elements should be included in our prayers in particular when we are scared or when we are overwhelmed?
What I wanted to extract from this passage, as far as thinking about our own prayers individually and corporately, are three simple things.

We see here the role of God's promises in this passage. Both the beginning and the end of this passage, we see Jacob reciting a promise that God had made to him. And so we're almost kind of seeing in his heart what's going on, “Lord, this is what you told me. You said that you would be with me. You said that you would do good to me and bless me. And yet, my brother is coming towards me with 400 men, and it seems like I'm going to die. So I don't understand how this is good or how this is leading to my blessing.” And so what I wanted us to take away from this was that it is good for us and it is honoring to God to repeat God's promises back to him in prayer. It is good for us, it increases our faith and strengthens us, especially when we're scared, when we can remember what he has said and repeat it back to him. And again, it honors him.

Providence, reciting God's providences or calling God's providences to mind. We see here in this passage that Jacob calls to mind what God has already done previously. And this is informing his present prayer. He says, “I'm not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. For with only my staff I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps.” So he's looking at what God has already done in his life and that is informing his prayer right now. And it almost seems as though he's using this as what we could call, I think what Spurgeon called, a holy argument in prayer. Essentially, “God, you already did these things for me, I know I didn't deserve for you to do any of these kind things for me, but was it for nothing? Was it just so I could die now at the hands of my brother? Why even keep me alive this long if you're going to cast me away now? So I think from this we learn that we should call out God's past acts and his providences in our lives to help us when we pray. We should remember the things that God has already done in our own lives and even just in redemptive history to remind us who he is, remind us what he is able to do and about his faithfulness in the past.

If you are prostrating yourself, you think of the image of a person prostrating themselves before an ancient king perhaps, or some sort of royalty. They are a subject, a servant, they recognize their lowly status and so they're laying out on the floor or perhaps bowing in some way. And maybe Jacob's not doing that physically, but spiritually he is, isn't he? He says, “I am not worthy. I am not worthy of the least of all these deeds that you have done for me.” In other words, he recognizes that he doesn't deserve what he's about to ask the Lord. And so spiritually speaking, Jacob is on his face in the dirt. He has humbled himself before God. And I think that this is something that should be reflected in our prayers, in the words that we use on the one hand, but even in our tone of voice. Perhaps you have noticed before, and perhaps you've even noticed yourself doing it before. Sometimes we might almost rush into the prayer room, so to speak, we might rush into prayer almost in what sounds to be a flippant way or a way that sounds a little bit more casual. And while we are invited to come to him as our father, we must also remember, and it should be reflected in our tone of voice that we recognize that this is the sovereign king, this is the Lord of Lords who we are approaching in prayer. So yes, he's our father, but we show him reverence. We show him awe in the way that we address him. And so maybe you've also noticed, and I personally love this when this happens, but a lot of times, if you've noticed in corporate prayer, people will pause before they start praying. I've noticed myself doing that. I think a lot of times we do that because we recognize we are coming before a holy God. We are coming before the King of kings and we are but animated dust, as one pastor said. That's what we are, we are animated and sanctified dust and we're coming before the King of kings.

So with that being said,  we have the role of promises, the role of God's providences, and the role of prostration and prayer. I hope that that might be helpful to us in some way.