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Prayerless Praying
Inspired by our 365-Prayer series, I have also been reading E.M. Bounds on Prayer. It’s an amazing book, because although the author lived in the late 1800s, his writings are just as relevant today.
A chapter that I can’t seem to stop poring over is one called "Prayerless Praying." He talks about Prayer holding the citadel for God. Satan attemps to keep us busy and distracted, our prayer feeble and weak. When our prayers are weakened, the citadel is taken.
The two evils that this verse in James mentions are not praying at all, and praying with wrong motives. Bounds says, "Perhaps the greatever evil is wrong asking, for it has in it the show of duty done, of praying when there has been no praying-a deceit, a fraud, a sham." True prayer is never about eloquent words, pleasing oneself, or going through the motions.
I don’t think I’m guilty of using overly eloquent words, or attempting to ask for things that I know won’t please God…but I confess that I’ve definitely had moments of going through the motions. I’ve attempted to pray, and then allowed distractions to make me restless and agitated. I’ve checked prayer off my "to-do" list, but realized that if I’d had the same conversation with a friend, they would have felt slighted and ignored. I would have just been rattling off words to them in a rush to get on to something else.
According to this chapter, our lives and prayer lives often mimic each other and affect each other. When we aren’t living strongly with and for God, it’s difficult to pray with strength. The way we live colors the way we pray. We can’t compartmentalize the two.
Much as I’d like my life to be full of passion, purpose, and zeal, I also want my prayer life to look that way. I want to abide with God, and for his heart and mine to be one. I want my prayers to actually be His. And when I pray, I never want my words or thoughts to be mechanical, perfunctory or rote.
"There is nothing that will preserve the life or prayer-its vigor, sweetness, obligations, seriousness, and value-so much as a deep conviction that prayer is an approach to God, a pleading with God, an asking of God. Reality will then be in it; reverence will then be in the attitude, in the place, and in the air. Faith will draw, kindle, and open. Formality and deadness cannot live in this high and all-serious home of the soul."
this is a great thought:
I’ve attempted to pray, and then allowed distractions to make me restless and agitated. I’ve checked prayer off my “to-do” list, but realized that if I’d had the same conversation with a friend, they would have felt slighted and ignored.
thanks!