Every Christian knows the
importance of prayer to their spiritual well-being and yet you rarely find a
Christian who is satisfied with their prayer life. Praying also seems pretty
easy to do, however, it can be the hardest spiritual disciplines to do and the
hardest to actually find pleasure doing. How many times do we struggle to
consistently be engaged in prayer and how many times do our prayers feel dry
and aimless? You soon began to feel like you are saying a lot words (sometimes
the same words) and yet not saying much at all. If you are like me you desire
to pray more and pray better, but borrowing a phrase doing its rounds on social
media “the struggle is real”.
Struggling in prayer can
be rather frustrating. You may genuinely desire to pray, even set a time for
prayer and yet when the set time comes you struggle to get round to praying; and
the times you actually do pray, the prayers are labored, just listen to our
prayers at meal times to get a feel of our struggle. So how exactly does one
learn how pray sincerely and meaningfully? Desperation!
It is said desperate
situations call for desperate measures, well I beg to differ desperate
situations call for desperate prayer. I recently was hit from all sides and
angles with issues that not only drained the life out me but also left me
clueless and totally out depth. Yes I prayed as is to be expected and I went
about trying to apply all the little knowledge I have acquired and nothing
seemed to work, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Then it hit, I had
no answers, no solutions and there was absolutely nothing I could do to solve
or deal with the different issues that were unrelenting. I was desperate. And
in my desperation I cried out to God, and like a child speaking to the father I
poured my heart out to him. I acknowledged I was totally unable apart from Him
and His grace and trying to do life and serve Him in my own ability has only
made things worse.
As I reflect on that
moment I realized that though it was an agonizing experience and my praying was
out of desperation it was at the same time sweet communion with God. And I
wondered why not enjoy such communion on a daily basis? The answer is simple, I
am self-sufficient. I am not desperate on a daily basis because I somehow
believe I can manage my life and responsibilities on my own and therefore, do
not pray with desperation. My head and mouth say God is sovereign and in
control but my life screams I am in control of things. I am thankful the Lord
allowed the many issues to teach me to pray earnestly, simply and with deep
desperation.
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