We are often encouraged by Jesus’ disciples—especially by their mistakes and slowness to grasp things! And we can certainly identify with how they felt when they came to Jesus one day, having seen him earnestly praying, and said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples’ (Luke 11:1). It wasn’t that they hadn’t prayed before or didn’t know how to; as Jews they would often have prayed—before meals, in the synagogue, and at great festivals. But Jesus had a completely different