I often have people tell me that the reason they didn’t pray
at prayer meeting was that they didn’t have anything to pray about. Or, they
will tell me that they aren’t praying in private because they can never think
of what to pray.
My response is that the very thing they say is their reason
not to pray is actually their reason to pray. When we hit a place where we don’t
know what to pray, we NEED to pray and let God give us what to pray. Even in fellowship-prayer
with another believer, or our prayer group, or our church prayer meeting, as
scary as it might be, when there is that quiet moment that we could begin
praying, and our minds seem empty of any possible thing to pray for, we should
learn to begin praying anyway so that God can give us something to pray about.
I know our sarky self-protection cannot imagine this, that
we would dare to enter into such an unsafe scenario as opening our mouths when
we have nothing to pray, but consider what the faith-based heart of a beloved
child sees when the opportunity to pray comes before him or her and no
immediate thought of something to pray or praise is evident.
When a beloved child knows there is something between him or
her and Father, and it grieves their heart that they are not as close to Father
as they wish, and there is some nebulous fog of contrariness within them that keeps
telling them they have nothing to pray about, and yet not praying is preventing
the fellowship with the Spirit they long for, then the reasons not to pray
become the things to pray for with reckless abandon.
We know how children can pester us with something they want,
asking repeatedly the exact same question because we still haven’t given them the
answer they are looking for. Even when we answer, if the answer is contrary to
their desire, they will continue asking in the belief that there has to be a
match between their request and our reply.
Now, what about when the child of God believes that the
reason he or she is not praying to Father is because they cannot think of what
to pray, and yet they know that not praying is hindering their growth in
fellowship with Father? Does the awareness of the problem lead the child to
conclude that they will not approach Father because they cannot think of what
to pray? Is this the way we relate to others, that we will avoid them because
we haven’t thought through what we would say to them if we were together? Do we
not meet with many people in many different scenarios where we haven’t given
any thought to what to say but just start talking because we are happy to see
them?
Perhaps we do not know Father’s heart for us that he reveals
himself as the beloved Father who takes his children in his arms and carries
them close to his heart.[1]
Perhaps we do not know that it is okay to approach Father with nothing to say because
he has plenty to say to us and its okay to rest in him and listen to him speak
through his word, and through his Spirit, so that we feel our souls feeding on
every word that comes from the mouth of God.[2]
Some of us may be surprised to discover that, if we would
meet with God on a daily basis where we first tell him where we’re at, how we’re
doing, what we’re thinking and feeling, like a little child admitting his or her
neediness to Father, and then open the word to hear what the Spirit has to
teach us and remind us about that day,[3]
that we would then discover that Father speaks so profoundly personally to
whatever we are going through that we would have more to talk to him about than
we had imagined.
Because the Scriptures we have in God’s Book are the
breathed-out words of God, and they are able to teach us, reprove us, correct
us, and train us in righteousness,[4]
presenting our hearts to God in the prayerful meditation of his word will
ALWAYS give us things to pray about.
Using the scenario at hand, that we come to God struggling
to know what to pray to him, and we begin by telling him all about that in
humble contrition, and then we read in his word and see that the Spirit is
seeking to speak something into our hearts, we will have something to pray back
to Father in relation to whatever his words are teaching us. Simply because we
put our heart before Father, and then listened to what he had to say, and
discovered that his Spirit was now teaching us whatever we need to hear, gives
us something to pray about, that we would experience whatever the words of
Christ are instructing us to have in our lives.
At times, the ministry of the words of Christ will work to
reprove us, or to address things in our lives that are wrong with us. At times
this will feel like a loving Father showing his beloved child that there is sin
hindering our relationship with him, perhaps the underlying reason we can’t
pray. After all, when we’re in love with some sin, isn’t Father the last person
we would want to talk to since we know he will do something to help us stop
sinning? So, when we give in to the Spirit’s invitation to pour out our hearts
in the divine presence, we must not be surprised when the words of Christ
reprove us for the sin that is not only a hindrance to prayer, but a hindrance
to everything to do with our fellowship with God and his people.
Other times the reproof of God in his words may address
wrong beliefs and thinking in relation to other people’s sins against us. The
words of Christ may confront how wrong we are to harbor a self-protective
stance against God because we don’t trust him with our hurts and heartaches and
so we just avoid him. If we get as far as telling Father where we are starting
from, and then listening to his word for anything he has to say to us that day,
we can be sure that he will address our mistaken choice to rely on ourselves
for the care of our wounds rather than come to him in that small mustard seed
of faith that believes there has to be some truth to the revelation that God
heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.[5]
While fear nags at our souls that this couldn’t be true because it has never
happened before, faith urges us to accept the reproof of the words of Christ
and come boldly into the divine presence to receive the help we so desperately
need.
Whenever God’s words reprove us of things that are wrong in
our lives, even if it just feels like a doctor making a diagnosis of our
soul-condition as he or she would of our bodies, the reproof is never the
expression of divine judgment against sinners. When God adopts us as his
children, something he does for every person who receives the Lord Jesus Christ
as our Lord, and God, and Savior, he always follows up a reproof with the
correction of his loving discipline.[6]
In other words, if Father shows us there is something wrong
within us, it is always so he can address it for our ongoing transformation
into the likeness of Jesus Christ from one degree of glory to another.[7] He
must follow a rebuke of what is wrong with a correction into what is right.
This might include him reproving us for doubting him about whatever we have
hidden beneath our layers of self-protection, and correcting us into the kind
of humble faith that would express trust in him of the, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you”, variety.[8]
Whatever the case, we must expect that our times in the word of God will
sometimes have to correct a wrong notion, or a wrong action, and, when Father
shows us the correct way of thinking about our problem, even our struggle to
pray, we will discover that he had a way to help us after all!
The over-riding ministry of God’s word is that Father uses
his word to train us in righteousness. Even the righteousness of prayer can be
trained into us. In fact, people join sports’ teams all the time without having
the skills to play, but with a desire to be trained to play. Kids start sports
at young ages where they can barely skate, or kick a ball, and yet they get out
there on the ice, or on the field, and accept the training that will help them
grow up to do well.
In an even greater way, when we consider that the words of
Christ will train us in righteousness, we are right back to the starting place
of believing that whatever is a hindrance is actually a help. That
unrighteousness in our hearts is not a hindrance to approaching God, but a help
to know how to pray. And, we pray about the unrighteousness in our lives, and
things Father shows us in his word of what righteousness looks like, because we
know the very words of God in the hands of the Holy Spirit will train us in
righteousness without fail.[9]
All of this gives us plenty of reason to pray when we don’t
know what to pray. If we will pray to Father that we don’t know what to pray,
tell him how we feel about that, and whatever else pours out of our hearts once
we open the prayer-faucet, and then open his word knowing that faith comes from
hearing, and hearing comes from the words of Christ,[10]
we can be sure that Father will give us something in his word that will build
up our faith so we know what to pray. We just have to start praying!
Now, I suspect that if any of us have never tried this
before that giving it our first shot in a public prayer meeting might seem so
insurmountable that we would not even imagine trying. Well, guess what! That’s
what our private and secret prayer-life is for!
Before your church’s next prayer meeting, or your next prayer
group, or your next visit with any believer who might consider praying with
you, get alone with God and begin praying out your struggles with willingness
for the Spirit of Jesus Christ to lead you into prayer. Begin with an
expression of your dependence on your heavenly Father to teach you to pray,
confessing whatever inabilities and inadequacies are staring you in the face,
and settle your heart into the Holy Spirit’s work of helping you cry out, “Abba! Father!”[11]
And don’t stop because you still believe you have nothing to
pray. Once we settle that every thought or belief that causes us to conclude we
ought not to pray is really the very thing we should pray about, our struggle
becomes a help to prayer rather than a hindrance to prayer.
And, once that hindrance to prayer is removed, the one where
we keep concluding we should stop praying just because we have nothing in our
minds to pray, we will discover that it is rather easy to pray without ceasing
when we just keep starting with every thought in our heads that tells us we
have nothing to pray. Get those things poured out before the throne of grace
and we will discover that God has plenty of grace and mercy to help us in our
time of need, and will lead us into more things to pray about than we can
possibly fit in.[12]
© 2017 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
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