Some Thoughts on Prayer

Prayer is an interesting thing. It is a vital part of our communion with God. We pour out are hearts to Him, we praise Him for His goodness and blessing, we ask for His provision, we lift up others to Him for their needs.

Sometimes we pray because our hearts are full and overflowing with gratitude towards God. Other times we cry in anger towards Him, not understanding His purposes. We run to God in prayer for help in times of distress.

Yet oftentimes our prayers can be mundane, lifeless, rote. We can be like the pharisees, praying for the attention of others, or out of sheer duty or even pride; we think that our prayers are what make us great in a spiritual sense, that we can look like mighty Christians, even if just to ourselves.

As much as prayer is our speaking to God, I also understand that it is God who knows our hearts and our intentions.

As Paul says in Romans 8:26: "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 so, I think that though oftentimes I struggle to pray, I know that God is still hearing me. There are of course other aspects to this: confessing sin, praying in His will, etc. That is, proper guardrails for our prayers.

Still, prayer is difficult, and that difficulty should not cause us to not pray at all. But to trust that even as we stumble over our words, God is sorting it out. Just because I didn't pray in a way that I feel is "correct", doesn't mean that God isn't going to answer it.

I oftentimes have felt that prayer is like a letter or some kind of process, where if I don't do this or end it with "in Jesus' Name..." then God won't hear or answer it. I forget that this is a relationship, not a machine.

It's a good thing, because wow am I a mess sometimes with prayer. I dare say we all can be.

I know I've talked about prayer before, and that none of this is anything new. But perhaps it is a helpful reminder to you, and me, to keep at it, confessing our sins, seeking to pray within God's will, all the while trusting that He knows us deeper than we possibly could, and He can certainly decipher the mess of words we speak to Him sometimes.

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