If I told you I was friends with comedian Conan O’Brien, you’d ask, “How often do you get to see him?”

If I said, “I haven’t met him yet. But I’ve watched his show and I’ve read a lot of articles about him,” you’d think I was nuts. Knowing about Conan O’Brien and knowing Conan O’Brien are not the same thing. We can’t know someone or have a real relationship without spending time together.

In the Gospel of Luke, our Lord uses a few brushstrokes to paint four portraits of prayer. They are simply snapshots to carry with you in your Christian walk. Put these snapshots to­gether for a composite picture of prayer.  Here’s one of the pictures.

The Parable of Fatherhood

In Luke 18:1, the Lord talked about how to live by faith in the last days. They’re difficult days, He said, when people’s hearts fail them for fear. This makes prayer all the more relevant for this hour. Jesus then told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not become discouraged. He told a lot of parables, stories with a divine purpose. I believe Jesus never told a fictitious story when teaching a parable. When He told a story, the people knew exactly the situation He was talking about.

Since prayer was eliminated from public schools, the quality of education has shown a steady statistical decline. Is there a link between the two?

Prayer Sets a Standard

Humanism assumes that the supernatural does not exist and that reality must be discovered purely from man’s reasoning. Our public school system has been operating on this foundation since prayer was removed in 1962. Returning prayer to school would be an affront to this philosophy because prayer acknowledges the existence of someone greater than man.