See if this is as true for you
as it is for me. I find that the most difficult
of all spiritual exercises is prayer. Studying, meditating,
and preaching are all relatively easy for me. But to pray, that's
hard. No sooner do I try to pray than
a thousand other thoughts invade my mind, little details of life
that need attention. Even thoughts about some portion
of scripture will arrest my attention and draw me away from praying.
Because I experience such weakness in prayer, it's encouraging for
me to read what Paul wrote in Romans 8, verse 26. Likewise,
the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We have all sorts of weaknesses,
don't we? But Paul is specific about the
weakness to which he refers, for he goes on to say, for we
do not know what to pray for as we ought. Right there it is,
weakness in prayer. We are so weak in this matter,
we do not even know what sort of things we should pray for.
Yet Paul does not leave us in a state of despair about our
prayers, for he goes on to say, but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words. Now, you who struggle
in prayer, do not be surprised or overwhelmed with this difficulty.
Pray as you can, knowing this, the Spirit of God will take your
rambling prayer, purify it from all flesh, add to it what you
should have put in it, and present it to God as a perfect prayer.
This is true for every child of God. None of us is powerful
in prayer. The power in our prayers does
not arise from some strength, righteousness, holiness, or wisdom
of our own. Rather, the prayers of God's
saints are powerful and effective because the Spirit of God intercedes
for us. He fixes our prayers and sends
them on to the Father. We have difficulty in prayer
because of our natural weakness in spiritual When our Lord was
in Gethsemane praying to his father about the things that
would shortly take place, he returned to his disciples to
find them sleeping. This happened three times, and
he rebuked them with, could you not pray with me for one hour?
No doubt that stung, but he did not leave it right there. He
continued by saying, truly, the spirit is willing, but the flesh
is weak. In essence, the Lord was saying, I know that in your
spirit You would have gladly prayed many hours with me, but
the flesh is weak and prevents it. James says we have difficulty
due to covetousness. In James 4 we read, You do not
have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because
you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. So often the
prayers of God's people sound more like a note to Santa Claus
than a prayer to the living God. Peter warns men to dwell with
their wives in understanding and consideration, taking into
account that they have weaknesses specific to their gender. Otherwise,
their prayers will be hindered. And we can generalize that principle
to any relationship in which one is in a superior position
of authority. Fathers should deal with their
children mercifully, understanding the weaknesses of children. Bosses
should deal with those who work for them in compassion. understanding
their limitations. How can we expect God to show
mercy to us in our weakness when we do not show mercy to others
in their weaknesses? Busyness hinders our prayer life.
We are so busy. And we use that as an excuse
not to pray. This shows how little regard
we have for prayer and the privilege of it. I am certain that if you
were to receive a call from the White House saying that tomorrow
you could meet with the President of the United States of America,
you would find a way to clear your schedule. But what is that
compared to the privilege of coming into the presence of God,
addressing Him as Father, and laying out our hearts to Him?
If we are too busy to pray, we are too busy, period. Unbelief
is also a great hindrance to prayer. James wrote in chapter
1, verse 6, But let him ask in faith, with no doubting For the
one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and
tossed by the wind. Such a person must not suppose
that he will receive anything from the Lord." Sometimes your
unbelief may take this form. You worry that you are unworthy
of a hearing in the presence of God. Well, let me settle that
worry right now. You are unworthy. But that is
irrelevant. In illustrating the willingness
of God to give good things to His children when they The Lord
Jesus said, If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven
give good gifts to those who ask Him? Your unworthiness of
God's goodness is not news to Christ, nor will it be news to
God. The very ones Christ is teaching
to pray are the ones that He calls evil. The Lord Jesus said,
and it will be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock,
and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives,
and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it
will be opened." These words must not be taken out of their
context. They are found in Luke 11 verse 9 and are part of a
longer teaching on prayer. That teaching began with Christ's
model prayer, which is traditionally called the Lord's It is prayers
such as this which come with the promise about asking, seeking,
and knocking. The promise concerns prayers
delivered as a child to its father. The Lord said to pray, Our Father.
What an unspeakably wonderful relationship believers have with
God. He is their Father. This speaks to us of the affection
that God has for His people. He sees them as a father sees
his children. It is written Like as a father
pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him. For
He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust.
When a believer prays to God, he is not coming to Him as a
slave to his master. He is coming as a child to his
father, assured of his father's love and affection. He is also
coming to God in the submission of a child, not demanding things,
but asking things. The Lord's promise concerns prayers
of worship, for He taught us to pray, Hallowed be your name. The name of our God is holy,
and it is a great grief to the child of God to see His Father's
name treated with such disrespect in this world. But it is His
delight to glorify His Father and revere His name. When we
come before God our Father, understanding the great and majestic and holy
being that He is, it puts us in a frame of mind that sanctifies
our prayer. It will change the character
of our prayers if we keep in mind who it is we pray to. Your
kingdom come. Instantly, the reverence God's
children have for Him shows itself in the great concern of their
hearts, their Father's kingdom. What child is not interested
in its Father's kingdom? What is our great concern? Do
we find our joy in seeing God's gospel spread and sinners coming
to repentance, or are our hearts stuck on praying for the pleasures,
riches, and comforts of this life? We are taught to pray for
our daily necessities. Give us, each day, our daily
bread. In another place, the Lord said
that we should content ourselves with having sufficient food and
clothes. So we should ask for and be content with daily provisions. We are not taught to pray for
a full pantry. When there is an abundance of
supply, we tend to start trusting the supply rather than the supplier. Who of us prays for money unless
the bank account is near empty? Therefore, do not be surprised
if God never gives you more than what you need today, and be thankful
and content that He does just that. Forgive us our sins. We can never get very far from
the truth that even though we are God's children, we are still
sinners. And we must also keep in mind
that even though God is our Father, He does not cease to be the holy
and just God He has always been. The convicted sinner who has
never called on God certainly feels the need for forgiveness.
How much more should those who have tasted that the Lord is
good desire their sins be forgiven by their gracious Father? Do
not lead us into temptation. Our Father is not only the One
who is our Savior in times of distress, He is the One who protects
us from many distresses. While we may be willing to endure
whatever the Lord wills, our prayer is that He not direct
our paths into circumstances that severely test us. Regarding
prayers like this, the Lord says, Ask, and it will be given to
you. Seek, and you will find. and it will be open to you. Asking,
seeking, knocking, all three of these indicate a desire for
something, but each is more earnest than the preceding one. We are
told to ask with the promise that we shall receive. We are
to make our request known to God, and provided our request
is not merely for fleshly things, we can be assured that we shall
receive. Now the promise is not that we shall receive exactly
what we ask for, or that we shall receive it in the way we might
have expected. But God will not ignore the request
of His children, and He will give them the true desire of
their heart in such a way as will be good for us. For example,
a request for health might be answered with grace to endure
sickness, and we shall discover that God's supply of grace was
better than our request for healing. Seek and you will find. A person
may ask for frivolous things yet not be willing to put any
effort into obtaining them. God may test the sincerity of
our desires by making us seek the thing we desire, even making
us seek it with all our hearts. What do you seek? For what are
you willing to expend your labor to have? If we ask for a deeper
understanding of the things of God, yet give no time to reading
His book or worshiping Him from the heart, can we then expect
that He will give us what we ask for? If we ask only once
and do not ask again and even again and again, we may not find. God says, seek. Knock, and it
shall be opened unto you. In the early 80s, I was an orkin
man. I had about 300 accounts I had to service each month.
I quickly learned that doorbells were untrustworthy, for they
may not ring. I learned always to knock. And
if I did not get an answer, I would knock harder. They knew what
day I was supposed to be there, and I did not want them to ignore
me, making it necessary for me to go back to their house. Knock. And knock again, but louder.
And knock again, if need be. The door will be open. Now, there
may be some listening who do not consider themselves to be
children of God, yet they would like to be. Well, you may also
rely on this promise. Do you want God's salvation?
Ask for it, and it shall be given to you. Does your heart long
for God? Seek Him with all your heart,
and you will find Him. Do you desire a place in God's
household? Then knock on the door, and the
Lord will send a servant to open it for you, a gospel preacher.
When the door is open, enter into the king's palace and discover
that you are in your father's house. The Lord Jesus has gone
in ahead of us, and there is a guarantee to everyone and anyone
that he who knocks upon the door of God's grace in Christ shall
find the door to swing open. May God add His blessing to His
Word.