There’s no getting around it; prayer is risky, uncomfortable, scary. In prayer, we hope that we are reaching out in honesty and trust, hope that we are touching the infinite source of all that is good—God. But just as often we are hiding when we pray. The reach of sin—that instinctive desire to cling to control, to hide, to disconnect—touches even our prayers, leaving us feeling disconnected from the Spirit within, leaving our words feeling hollow and empty, not unlike the “vain repetitions” Jesus warned against (Matthew 6:7).
Keep praying anyway. There’s a profound mystery in the way Christ’s Spirit within unites with our own spirit in our desperate, feeble attempts to connect with what is eternal. Henri Nouwen explains, “The paradox of prayer is that we have to learn how to pray while we can only receive it as a gift.” It is somewhere in that dance between us reaching out and the Spirit drawing us near to God that prayer as union with God, as connection with what is lasting and true, happens.
The Bible contains a great deal of prayers and a lot about prayer. In the next five days, let’s journey together through some of what we find in God’s self-revelation about how other’s have spoken with Him and how we are encouraged to speak with Him. At the end of each day you’ll find suggestions on how to think through the passage and then some practices to try in your own prayers. Let’s learn how we can “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence” (Hebrews 4:16). God has invited us to speak with Him and hear from Him. Will we accept the invitation?
Click the link below to start today.
