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I don’t know about you, but I have to admit that I am the worst when it comes to prayer. I struggle with the words to say, many of them don’t get answered and so often I just miss the point of it all. Come to think of it, if you’ve never felt that way before then you’re either faking it or dead because as long as we’re alive, we’ll all most likely struggle with praying right.
Praying seems simple enough that anyone can do it, but truth be told, I don’t believe that any Christian has done it right. And it’s only in the moment that we admit that and desperately ask God to renew our prayer times that we start progressing to right prayer. We never get there, but we get closer and closer as we go along.
There was one instance in the Bible when one of Jesus’ disciples (the Bible doesn’t say who) admits that his prayer life was in terrible shape. Luke 11:1 says, “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.'” Just like that disciple – whoever he (or maybe even she) was, we need to be like that disciple. We need to ask God for the grace to be renewed so that we can communicate the right things and communicate with the right heart.
If you’re convinced that your communication with God is not flawed and imperfect, just look at how you and your spouse or how you and your parents communicate with one another. Chances are that many times you’ve probably had a misunderstanding with them. In fact, there’s a big possibility that you’ve had multiple misunderstandings with officemates, churchmates, schoolmates, and many other people around you. If you have miscommunications with others, how much more with God?
So does that mean that we just forget about prayer because we’ll never be any good at it? Of course not. I know it can get weary doing something knowing that we’re never going to be any good at it but Hebrews 12:3 encourages us saying, “Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”
Prayer will always be a challenge. Many times God won’t answer the way you want to be answered, you won’t have the words to say, or you’ll just be too tired to do it. But God calls us to endure amidst the failure and opposition just as Christ endured through opposition. When you’re prayers miss the point, realign and look to God’s grace once more. Practice makes perfect – or at least as close as we can get to it.
