Word of Encouragement (10/29/2020)
Yesterday, we talked about how prayer should be the easiest spiritual exercise. But how is it in practice? Sadly, many of us find prayer to be one of the most difficult things to do. Why?
I want to share with you what I said in a sermon a couple of weeks ago: “Why do we find praying so difficult? Isn’t it because we fear disappointment? This fear is not about doubting God’s power to answer our prayers; it comes from not being sure whether God would do it for me! Or, being quite sure that God may do it for others but not for me.” What do we do about this?
The first is to remind ourselves that prayer is a means of grace. It is a means by which we grow in faith. The keyword here is “grow.” Prayer is not intended to “create” faith but to “grow” faith. After all, we need faith to pray. And if you are a Christian, you have enough faith to pray: “...Edward Leigh says that as soon as the Spirit of grace enters into the heart of a person [and the person is regenerated and believes in Christ], He stirs it unto plentiful and abundant supplicating and suing [i.e., pleading] God for grace and mercy” (p. 147). We should not think that, unless the Holy Spirit does something extraordinary for us, we cannot pray. He is always urging us to pray. We just need to respond in faith to pray instead of ignoring His gentle nudging and putting off praying.
The second is to remember that the only way to learn how to pray and grow in our prayer life is by praying. There is no way around it. No matter how powerfully the Holy Spirit works in us to help us pray, unless we keep on praying, we will not get proficient enough in prayer to enjoy our time of prayer.
Lastly, we should remember that prayer is not only a means by which God grows our faith but also a means by which God accomplishes His purpose:
“His decree is not conditioned on man’s desire and prayers, but His decree includes man’s desire and prayers as the appointed means to the appointed end. Oh, that we would believe this promise, which has its roots in God’s eternal decree, and look for more Spirit than speech in our prayers! As it is impossible that God’s decree should fail, so it is impossible that any part of it will fail, including the gracious moving of our hearts toward prayer” (p. 147).
If we truly understand this, we will not view prayer as a burdensome religious duty but a great privilege. We will think of not praying as the greatest loss in our spiritual life. If God has given us the wonderful privilege of participating in His infallible and glorious work, how terrible it is for us to just stand on the sidelines and just watch it unfold right before our eyes! But if we participate in the work of God through prayer and see clearly (because we prayed) what God is doing in answer to our prayer, oh how confident and bold our faith will be!
Brothers and sisters, I pray that you will catch a burning desire for prayer and commit yourself to a prayerful and fruitful life in Jesus Christ!