Sunday, January 13, 2013

Every Prayer’s a Winner

“Let us resolve by God’s grace that, however feeble and poor our prayers may seem to us, we will pray on.”
— J.C. Ryle (1816–1900)
If there is a trembling weakness within any believer’s repertoire of spiritual disciplines, besides their sin, it’s likely to be prayer. Many of us feel we don’t pray well enough. Most of us probably feel we don’t pray enough. And probably all of us have experienced that doubt within that contemplates that God either doesn’t hear our prayers or doesn’t answer them. We secretly wonder if prayer makes any difference at all.
The topic of prayer, therefore, can be a vexing one. It seems too much of a mystery at times, especially when we hear others’ eloquent prayers, thinking to ourselves, “If only I could pray like that!”
Well, God’s got news for us.
Prayer is truly nothing about eloquence. It’s only the human’s shield of fear for a good performance—the flesh-want for pride—that puts a barrier between us and the humble note of recognition of God and the request for God’s help that the Lord desires.
Glorifying God by Prayer
Could glorifying God by prayer be as simple as praying imperfectly, yet with an unshakeable conviction? And we may sound convicted, by the enthusiasm in our voices, but God alone knows our hearts. Would (or should) we fake an ardent conviction?
Could groans make for better prayers than fine elocution? To dictate well and enunciate perfectly sounds good to us humans, but is God impressed? God is impressed with a broken and contrite heart—a person cut to the heart enough to simply admit their sin and need of God.
Then there are all sorts of structures and rules for prayer, like A.C.T.S. (a process for prayer in the order of: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication [requests]). Is God bothered if we forget adoration because we are too weak to do anything but seek strength in our fatigue? Would God be perturbed if we were to just simply thank him?
We worry too much about how we pray and when we pray and how we sound when we pray. God simply wants us to pray.
Truly, every prayer is a winner, and better, still again, if we pray as truthfully as we can, not seeking material blessings, just simply spiritual blessings.
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We worry too much about how we pray and when we pray and how we sound when we pray. God simply wants us to pray.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.

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