3-15-2022

 Good Morning All!

Romans 8:26; “At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don’t know how to pray for what we need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words.”

    Whenever you go to a gathering of Christians, do you ever marvel at how some people can seem to just stand up and pray for a longtime and seem to know what to say? Their prayers just seem to flow with an endless sense of clarity and proper language. Do you ever think, “I wish I could pray like that?”  You are most likely in the vast majority, like I am, where our prayers have more “umms” and “urrs” and really long awkward pauses. Most of us struggle with prayer and not just public prayer but with our own private prayer as well.

     I don’t know how many times I have had someone tell me that they don’t know how to pray. I kind of blame that on the Church. We have many prayers which have been crafted and honed over many months to say what is “proper.”  Most of us don’t have months to think of a prayer. If you get a phone call that someone you love has had an auto accident, you need a prayer right now. So, we struggle with our daily prayer life because we don’t know what or how to pray.  Unfortunately, the devil loves to whisper in your ear that you can’t really pray so why try?

    Yet God has given us a way to deal with our struggling prayers. First, he invites us to pray, at all times and in all ways. He gives us the Lord’s Prayer to use as an example or just to use as it is. Finally, and most importantly we have Jesus praying for us (John17:20) and we have the Holy Spirit praying for us. These three things alone should give us confidence to pray and yet we still struggle.

    So, in order for us to have an easier time of praying, here are some ideas. First, practice, practice, practice!!  We need to have a solid and continual prayer life. Luther suggested that we set aside three times a day to pray. He suggested when you get up when you have lunch and when you go to bed.  The important part here is that you get in the habit of praying and not just waiting until you are in a stressful situation.

     If you feel the need to, try reading some of the prayers that have been written by others, especially the Psalms. Remember this is for you not God to be comfortable with your prayers. God is already comfortable with your prayers; he knows your needs long before you pray them. He calls us to prayer in order that he might give us healing and comfort. He uses our prayers to give us relief from our pains. He uses our prayers to help us celebrate our joys. There is an old hymn that encourages us to “speak oft with the Lord.”  This is good advice. Prayer is God’s gift to us; use it often.

Dearest Father, we don’t come to you in prayer as often as we should and for this we ask for your forgiveness. Give us the wisdom to seek you out in our prayers so that we may receive your tender mercy. Be with those who are in pain now and have nowhere to turn. Use us to be your hands and your voice. In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret