Years ago, a pastor gave a basic teaching on the levels of prayer. I haven’t seen or heard much since then that improves on what he said. His teaching truly defined the forms of prayer and showed the relationship between them. In this article, I examine and expand on that teaching.
The four levels of prayer, in ascending order, are: petitionary prayer, thanksgiving, praise, and worship. Before I elaborate on each one, let me give you the breakdown of why we have these four levels:
We ask, because of what God WILL DO.
We thank Him because of what He HAS DONE.
We praise Him because of what He DOES.
We worship Him because of WHO HE IS!
So much has been written and said about petitionary prayer, I hardly feel the need to go into much detail. I will bring your attention to one point - petitionary prayer is always the most effective when it is based on God’s will.
“This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.”
(1John 5:14-15 NASV)
Jesus, in His Pattern Prayer, which most call the Lord’s Prayer, referred to this:
"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’ ”
(Matt. 6:9-13 NASV)
When Jesus said, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” He instructed us to make a specific petition, and then He defined that petition. What is a kingdom but a realm where the king’s will is done? For God’s kingdom to come, then God’s will must be done.
Now, petitionary prayer has two sublevels, and two forms. Both forms exist at both sublevels.
The two forms of petitionary prayer are petitions for self-need and intercession.
Petitions for self are not necessarily selfish, but they can be. God does care about our individual needs, or else Jesus would not have instructed us to ask for daily bread. When we ask for selfish wants that we only think are needs is when we get into trouble.
We could say that intercession, petitions made for others, is a higher form than petitions made for self, but intercession can be made from selfish motives. Dave Roever, an evangelist who was seriously wounded while serving as a Navy SEAL in Vietnam used to pray for the other members of his team. Dave was a believer, raised in church, while his teammates were just the opposite. They would harass him, and he would pray, “God, kill ‘em!” I believe that Dave was joking, but how many ‘Christians’ wouldn’t joke while making a prayer like that?
Now, let’s look at the two sublevels of petitionary prayer: simple petition and supplication.
Simple petition is just that - the petitions that we make for ourselves and for others. Not much to say there beyond what has already been said.
Supplication is a little more involved. It is not just making petitions according to the will of God, it is submission to God’s will!
One thing I like to do to understand words is to use stuff I learned in high school. (Yes, I do use stuff I learned waaaay back then!) I like to break down a word and look at the roots. Sometimes I consider words that are similar, or have a component in common with the word I’m considering.
Look at the word ‘supplication.’ What words are similar? ‘Supply’ and ‘supple.’ Both of these words tell us something about supplication.
‘Supply’ definitely relates to simple petition. We have, or we know of someone who has, a need, and so we ask God to supply that need.
I know a few things about supply. In October of 1978, I attended 3 weeks of Army supply training in Fort Carson CO. After that, I returned to my National Guard unit and applied what I learned at Ft. Carson in performing my duties in the ‘commo’ (communications) section. Once I even sent in a request for the military-issue flashlights that we needed, and our AST (Administrative and Supply Technician) couldn’t even figure out how to look up the NSN (National Stock Number) on them. All I did was look at one of the flashlights, write down the model number, and then consult the SB-200 (Supply Bulletin) to find the NSN, then filled out the proper requisition form in the proper manner. I ordered them for my section, but they got distributed to the NCO’s (the platoon sergeants and squad leaders) throughout the entire unit.
Also, within a couple of weeks after finishing the supply course, I went to work for Guy Henshall Supply Co., a local chain of auto parts stores. One of my duties when I closed down a store for the night was to fill out order forms to restock the parts and other supplies we had sold that day. I held that job for almost 9 years, then I later worked at the NAPA warehouse in Tulsa for 2 years.
I’ll have more to say later on the spiritual significance behind my supply training and experience.
The word ‘supple’ has more to do with supplication than ‘supply’ does.
As I have aged, my skin has become less supple. I am fair-skinned, so my skin is still fairly supple for someone my age. People often think I am younger than I actually am, and that is because I’ve never married, don’t have kids, I do tend to stay inside a lot, and so I don’t have as many wrinkles as I otherwise would. I guess I’m blessed this way.
So, what does ‘supple’ mean? Able to yield to the touch, able to stretch and flex. In other words, supple skin yields easily to the touch. When you were a kid, did you ever have an aunt or grandma pinch your cheek and exclaim how cute you were? Your skin gave in to the pinching without much resistance, and it soon returned to its normal state, unless the pincher had a very strong grip.
To wrap up this discussion of supplication, let’s consider what the words ‘supply’ and ‘supple’ have in common.
A farmer’s crop is a supply for people’s nutritional needs. The size of a crop of a given grain, vegetable or fruit for the given soil and climatic conditions is called the ‘yield.’ Crop yields are one of the major factors in the business of agriculture.
So, farmland and skin are both known for how much they can yield.
Now what does this tell us about supplication?
A supplication is a request for a need to be supplied, made in the expectation that the one to whom the request is made will YIELD the requested item or items, but also the supplicant YIELDS to the will of the one to whom the request has been made. In other words, we petition for needs, expecting a supply, but we submit to God’s will as to how He will answer.
The ultimate example of supplication is Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane:
And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will."
(Matt. 26:39 NASV)
Jesus knew that His Father’s will was for Him to go to the cross, and He was committed to going. But His human soul didn’t want to go. In this prayer, Jesus wasn’t asking if His Father had an alternative plan as much as He was reaffirming His commitment to go through with the plan, no matter what His human emotions said.
When you know what God’s specific will is, you can ask with confidence that He will give you exactly what you ask for, because your request lines up exactly with His will. However, when you know that something generally fits in His will, but the specific thing you request might not align with His EXACT will for you, then the best course of action is to submit to Him and let Him decide what is best. For example, you might ask for a Ford, but He might want to bless you with a Chevy instead.
To further illustrate this, the Army has a will for what it wants to provide for each soldier and unit. Back when I was in the service, they expressed that will through two documents: TO&E (Table of Organization and Equipment) and CTA (Common Tables of Allowance).
The CTA applied to every soldier in the unit. It listed the item every member should have, such as web belt, back pack, harness, helmet, etc. We usually called these items ‘field gear.’ No matter if you were an officer, sergeant, rifleman, machine gunner, jeep driver, or whatever, you all got the same stuff.
The TO&E was primarily an organizational chart and also a list of items assigned to each position or section on the chart. It determined who was issued a rifle, a machine gun, or a pistol. It assigned the radios, field telephones and switchboard, and commo wire to the communications section, and so on.
A supply clerk could submit a request for a specific item in confidence if it was listed on the unit’s TO&E or CTA, because the request would line up with the Army’s will.
Now, the Army had to designate what each unit, section, or individual soldier could receive, not only to ensure that every soldier had what he needed to do his job, but also to prevent soldiers from getting carried away with ordering stuff. Without this system in place, every soldier would have his own jeep, his own CP (Command Post) tent instead of a shelter-half that forces him to partner up with someone to share a tent with, and so on.
In other words, soldiers would have to submit their requests for supplies according to the Army’s will, or they might not even get what they truly need.
Now, to move on to thanksgiving. This is an easy topic to cover, because it is not so complex, but it has a depth that many don’t realize.
What does it mean to thank someone?
Two things:
1. You recognize that the person you are thanking has done something for you that you didn‘t do for yourself.
2. What that person did for you was valuable, because you either couldn’t do it for yourself, or you wouldn’t have thought of doing it, so their action has value.
We all have more to be thankful for that what we realize, because God often does things for us that we don’t even know that He has done. Sometimes we learn about it later.
Why is thanksgiving so important? Because it is an act of humility. Consider the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18: 9 - 14). He did say, “God I thank you…,” but then he went on to talk about his own good works. He actually pretended to thank God, without realizing that he was just bragging on himself. He also failed to realize that righteousness is based on faith and not works. Instead of trusting God to make him righteous, he relied on his own works. He used the pretense of thanks to boast about his own “accomplishments.”
(FYI: Expressions of gratitude have been traced back to an ancient Oriental philosopher named Than Qu… Remember, God does have a sense of humor. He ribbed Adam, didn’t He?)
Praise is similar to thanksgiving, but more expansive and general. It is recognition of the value and/or quality of someone’s actions, whether they are performed for us or for others. We even praise our pets sometimes, such as when a dog fetches a stick or performs a trick, and you say, “Good girl!”
Praising also requires humility, especially when we want the recognition for ourselves.
Worship is the highest form of prayer because it is totally independent of works or actions. The word ‘worship’ relates to the word ‘worth.’ It is a recognition of someone’s worth, not because of what they have done, or what they do, but because of who they are.
Outside of worship, we can easily make the mistake of not recognizing God’s worth just because we haven’t seen Him do anything for us lately. We make the mistake of tying His worth to His actions on our behalf, and we fail to see the value He has within Himself just because of Who He is.
True worship requires total humility.
Now, what do these levels of prayer have to do with praying in tongues?
First, a quick review of why we pray in tongues:
“And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.”
(Acts 2:4 NASV)
The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to speak in tongues.
“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. What is the outcome then? I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind also; I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also.”
(1Cor. 14:14-15 NASV)
When we pray in tongues, it is our born-again human spirits that pray. We can decided when, where and for how long we wish to pray in tongues.
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
(Rom. 8:26-27 NASV)
When we pray in tongues, the Holy Spirit directs our prayers to line up with God’s will, and so the requests we make in tongues get answered. We don’t always know God’s will.
So, for petitionary prayer -
We don’t always know what to ask for, either for ourselves as individuals or as a group, or the needs of others that we should intercede for. The Holy Spirit always knows.
We don’t always know how to ask, because we don’t know when we need to yield to God’s will. Supplication is not an issue when praying in tongues, because the Holy Spirit will always cause our prayers to line up with Our Father’s will.
Beyond petitionary prayer, we don’t always know when we need to thank God for prayers that have been answered, or when we need to worship Him.
So, any question now about why we should pray in tongues?
Any question now about whether or not tongues is for today?
