prayer

Help for a Struggling Prayer Life

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 4 Comments

If you’re like me, you struggle with your prayer life.

I go from faith to unbelief every day.

It’s an all out war that wages in my mind.

God calls me to prayer, I pray, and then I don’t expect anything to happen.

That’s disgusting.  photo(199)

It’s also sin. It disgraces God who tells me he’s the God who hears prayer – Psalm 65:2.

So what do I do about it?

I need to understand God better.

God is not a Buddha statue who dispenses favors for the best tummy rub.

Nor is he a short-order cook writing down my laundry list of wants.

He’s also not a jolly grandpa in a rocking chair waiting to indulge me.

He’s God Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, who, if I am his child in Christ, is my Heavenly Father, and as such he pledges to be my Covenant God.

What does that mean?

It means that God is ready to hear my prayer, like a father is eager to hear what his son has to say.

He is ready to hear and grant my prayers.

My problem is that I may not perceive his answers.

By giving me a heart to pray and inflaming my desire to pray is an answer to prayer. Psalm 138:3

Also, I do not pray alone. Christ, my mediator, prays over my prayers. He takes the dross out of my prayer and presents it as pure gold to the Father, making my prayer powerful and mighty.

Just like a farmer who sows seed into the ground and then waits for the harvest, my prayers are the seeds I sow in faith and I wait in anticipation for God to send me a harvest of blessing, knowing he has heard and acknowledged each prayer.

If I remind myself of these truths, I have hope my prayer life will improve and the Lord will be pleased with me.

 

 

 

 

How To Pray Really Badly

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ Leave a comment

The Lord has heard my supplication; The Lord will receive my prayer. – Psalm 6:9

The experience here recorded is mine. I can set to my seal that God is true. In very wonderful ways He has answered the prayers of His servant many and many a time. Yes, and He is hearing my present supplication, and He is not turning away His ear from me. Blessed be His holy name!

What then? Why, for certain the promise which lies sleeping in the psalmist’s believing confidence is also mine. Let me grasp it by the hand of faith: “The Lord will receive my prayer.” He will accept it, think of it, and grant it in the way and time which His loving wisdom judges to be best. I bring my poor prayer in my hand to the great King, and He gives me audience and graciously receives my petition. My enemies will not listen to me, but my Lord will. They ridicule my tearful prayers, but my Lord does not; He receives my prayer into His ear and His heart.

What a reception this is for a poor sinner! We receive Jesus, and then the Lord receives us and our prayers for His Son’s sake. Blessed be that dear name which franks our prayers so that they freely pass even within the golden gates. Lord, teach me to pray, since Thou hearest my prayers.

– From Faith’s Checkbook by C.H. Spurgeon

When I read this I was reminded of my sin of unbelief. I know God hears my prayers. I understand that much. But where I lose it is when he doesn’t answer them in the way I want him to. And when that happens, I immediately conclude he’s not listening to me, or worse, caring about me.

That’s utterly sinful because it maligns the character and promises of God. 

Truth is I want my prayers answered now and according to my will, not his.

Upon further reflection, I realized, too, that God is answering my prayers all around me, as well as in the lives of the people I pray for, but I don’t have eyes to see that because I insist on having the answers my way.

Just today a friend told me he had sold his last painting, the one that nobody wanted.

“You prayed for that, remember?” he said.

I hadn’t remembered.

That was another indictment. I  had prayed without expectation. My expectations of God were little, if they existed at all.

I was seeing things about my prayer life that were not pretty.

But instead of flogging myself and telling myself to do better next time, which I know I will fail at, I reminded myself of the gospel.

Jesus prayed perfect prayers, full of hope and faith and belief in God.

And God has put his perfect praying record to my account.

That’s my only hope. His prayers, not mine.

I can rest in that and keep praying!

 

 

 

 

 

Why Doesn’t God Answer Me?

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 2 Comments

Have you ever wondered why God sometimes doesn’t answer your prayers?

Well, you’re not alone.

Not all of Jesus’ prayers were answered either.

C.S. Lewis has some stunning thoughts on the subject:

It would be even worse to think of those who get what they pray for as a sort of court favorites, people who have influence with the throne. The refused prayer of Christ in Gethsemane is answer enough for that.

You’re in good company if you have prayers that have gone unanswered.

It’s also the experience of every Christian. Paul didn’t have his prayer answered for the thorn in his flesh. Instead, he learned that God’s grace was sufficient for him, especially in his weakness, so God’s strength could show through.

If you’re struggling with this, here are 4 things to comfort you about unanswered prayer:

1. God hears every prayer

2. Every prayer will be answered in its fullness when Christ returns

3. Even if your prayer is answered here and now, it still is not fully realized until the Kingdom comes

4. The Holy Spirit, which God has given you as His guarantee of the coming Kingdom, is God’s promise of all your hopes and dreams for yourself, your family, your ministry, the masses of people who don’t know Christ that you have been praying for — all will be fulfilled in Christ.

God invites you to trust him because he’s up to something far more grand!

Why Do You Call Yourselves ‘Bad Christians’?

~ godisnotlikeyou ~ 4 Comments

We call ourselves ‘bad Christians’ because that’s what we are. By ‘Christians’ we mean people in relationship to Christ and other believers. By ‘bad’ we mean, we do plenty of nasty things and leave a lot of good things undone.

God took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. In other words, the life we have now is not something we produce or sustain; it is given to us for Christ’s sake and maintained by the gift and ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. Any applause we might receive for doing good belongs to God alone. It’s his mercy alone that keeps us. We need him to forgive us every second of every day, while the blood of Jesus keeps on cleaning us from all our filthiness.

Also as ‘bad Christians’ we need the community of other Christians, the preaching of God’s Word, communion, the prayers of God’s people, and the very needful help they can, and often do, give us.

We’ve tried the books, the counseling, and the retreats, but success alluded us. What progress we make as Christians comes as a gift from God. We have no idea how or why God gives it to us except for the fact it gives him pleasure.

The truth lies elsewhere: to live successfully as a Christian we need to recognize that no matter how hard we try to manage our sin, the oil-spill of our pollution continues to spread. That’s because we cannot remove the source. The problem will not be fixed until that day when God exchanges our corruption with the incorruptible. Meanwhile, we live by faith. Daily we seek forgiveness and strength by looking away from ourselves to our Savior. Our faith rests in his completed work and trusts God to make us holy as he sees fit.