It has been years since I read a "red-letter edition of the Bible"—you know what I mean, those with the words of Jesus printed in red. There is no real reason for it. It is just that the Bibles I have used for many years did not have that particularly trait.

But last week, as I was reading Scripture for our Spiritual Development Group, it dawned upon me that maybe we need a "green-letter edition." Such a Bible wouldn’t set apart Jesus’ words, but rather the words spoken to Jesus. After all, they are some of the most thought provoking, and beyond that, they often are words that we can imagine speaking.

• For example, some scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you." I understand that. Haven’t most of us asked God for proof at one time or another?
• Or what about the lawyer’s question? "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" That is a good one—one that we might see in green and claim as our own.
• Then there is the man who brought his epileptic son to Jesus for healing. Jesus asked him if he believed, and he said: "I believe; help my unbelief." Ever been there?

There are a number of such passages. You can probably think of others. But of all the ones we might identify, of all the ones that might speak for us, I think the one uttered by the disciples when they saw Jesus at prayer might be the most important. "Lord," they said, "teach us to pray."

Some might find that odd. After all, more than 80 percent of the people in the United States say they pray at least once a week. More than half the people here pray not just once a week but every day. We not only pray, we believe in prayer. Eight out of 10 people think that prayer can change what is happening in one’s life.

Yet for all our praying, there are signs that we are less than content with our prayer lives.

Let’s have a show of hands. How many of you are familiar with this little book—The Prayer of Jabez? It would be hard not to be familiar with it. More than 9 million copies of it have been sold. It has been the subject of articles in Time and in the newspaper. It has spawned a whole set of versions for children, youth and others as well as a host of The Prayer of Jabez products, ranging from prayer shawls to key chains. This thin, little volume on praying an obscure verse from the First Book of Chronicles has become, as one reviewer put it, a Christian publishing phenomenon.

But the popularity of The Prayer of Jabez is not the only evidence that people are looking for someone to teach them how to pray. Replacing it at the top of the Christian hardcover non-fiction best-sellers list is The Prayer of Jesus, a look at the Lord’s Prayer. And four of the top five sellers among Christian paperback books are on prayer—The Power of a Praying Woman, The Power of a Praying Wife, The Power of a Praying Parent, and The Power of a Praying Husband.

If there was any doubt that we are looking for someone to teach us how to pray, a study by The Teal Trust puts it to rest. Four years ago, The Trust surveyed more than 6,000 Christians in five English-speaking countries. It found that 75 percent of those surveyed expressed a desire to spend more time in prayer. People want a richer, fuller prayer life. I do. Don’t you?

Yet I am not sure we are getting the help we need because many of the works on prayer focus on how to pray.

A few years ago, I had a Sunday School class that spent half a year on John Killinger’s little book Beginning Prayer. Some chapters dealt with basics; others focused on different types of prayers. All of them included details on how we might go about it. By the end of the 26 weeks we had learned a lot about how to pray—we knew the importance of attitude, time, place, posture and mood. We also knew how to engage in more than 20 different types of prayer, everything from praying in silence to fantasizing with the Scriptures. If it were a matter of technique, of learning how to pray, we should have been spiritual giants at the end of that class. And so should all those who have read George Buttrick’s book on prayer, or Frank Laubach’s, or John Lloyd Ogilvie’s or Richard Foster’s or Bill Hybel’s or any of a hundred others. But that is not happening, is it? Otherwise so many of us wouldn’t long for richer prayer lives.

So what is the key to prayer?

I believe it is not a matter of "how to" but "who to." I believe prayer is not about technique but about relationship.

Let me offer an analogy. It doesn’t happen often enough, but every once in a while Joan and I will find ourselves with a few precious moments of uninterrupted time. No boys running in and out of the room. No meetings or appointments to which we need to rush. No must see TV. It is just time for us to share what we are doing, express our feelings, dream our dreams amid the day-to-day of our lives. Certainly there are techniques that can help us to do that—advice on the way we might phrase a complaint or express our feelings. But more important than "how" we communicate is with whom we are sharing. What is important is the relationship we have with the one sitting across the table from us or snuggling on the couch with us. The relationship is what makes it possible for us to communicate—even if Montel says we’re doing it all wrong.

That is the way it is with God. When the disciples said, "Lord, teach us to pray," Jesus gave them a model. But more importantly, he defined the relationship that they now had with God. He said to them, "When you pray, say, ‘Father..." or "Our Father..." It is an intimate term, the word that a small child would use to speak to his Daddy. And while in the Old Testament God is referred to as "Father," the use of the term as direct address in such an intimate way was unknown before Jesus. Jesus was saying to the disciples, "You no longer need to be in awe of God the Creator or in fear of God Most High. By following me, you have become children of God. You share in my relationship with God."

And that intimacy defines the way we pray. It defined the way Jesus prayed. Just before the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, they had seen and heard Jesus praying: "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth...."

Later, in the Garden of Gethsemane, they would hear him pray, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done."

And still later, from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing." And "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."

Do you feel the intimacy? The power and effectiveness of Jesus’ prayers has nothing to do with technique and everything to do with relationship.

It clearly affected the way Paul understood prayer. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle used the image of adoption to explain what God has done through Jesus Christ. He said that all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God and that we didn’t receive a spirit of slavery so that we needed to fear but a spirit of adoption. He said that when we cry, "Abba, Father," it is the Spirit bearing witness to the fact that we are children of God.

And later in Galatians we are told that God sent his Son so that we might be redeemed, adopted as children. And because we are children, the Spirit of Jesus comes into our hearts and makes it possible for us to cry, "Abba, Father."

One distinguishing mark of the earliest Christians was the fact that they made a transition never before made, a transition from being subjects of God to being children of God, capable of intimacy with their Father.

That intimacy remains. Calling God "Father" is the privilege we have because we believe in the Son. And that, more than anything else, shapes our prayers. Learning "how to" pray is OK. Developing techniques are fine. But ultimately prayer isn’t about the right words or the right place or the right style. It is about the right relationship—the one between parent and child. That means when we pause in the morning, it is not to send the smell of incense to appease God but to thank the one who gives us life for another day. When we find ourselves struggling and in pain, we are not begging for a distant God to come and make himself known. We are crying on the lap of one who wants more than anything else to comfort us and ease our pain. And when we bow at night and speak the traumas of the day, they are not bouncing off the ceiling; they are being whispered into the ear of one who loves us.

Such is the privilege of praying, "Abba! Father..."