I know of no one who is completely satisfied with his prayer life. All could pray more and more effectively. Even when fellowship with Christ in prayer is good, the godly man desires more of that fellowship — just as a husband and wife seek more and greater fellowship with each other even when (especially when) the fellowship they enjoy is mutually encouraging to them.
It is also a temptation to be stimulated to pray by guilt rather than joy.
Two blog posts came to my attention today that offer gracious impulses to pray more and more effectively. First, Scotty Smith models prayer with a prayer for when you don’t feel like praying:
Dear Father, this is one of those days when I could create a long prayer list and methodically go through it, but I’m not sure I would really be praying. I could go through the motions, but to be quite honest, it would be more ritual than reality—more about me, than the people and situations I’d bring before you. I’m feeling distracted this morning, scattered and not very focused at all.
It’s one of those days I’m glad the gospel is much more about your grasp of me than my grip on you. [Read the rest]
And Carlton Wynne, writing at Reformation 21, reminds us of four rules for praying that Calvin articulated in his Institutes:
The first rule of prayer, according to Calvin, is reverence for the one to whom we pray. We need to remember that we address our Almighty Creator and Father through the mediation of the exalted Lord by the power of the Spirit who searches “even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10).…The second rule, Calvin says, is realizing just how needy we are before God. Too often people offer prayers while their “hearts are . . . cold, and they do not ponder what they ask” (3.20.6); even worse, “for the sake of mere performance men often beseech God for many things that they are dead sure will, apart from his kindness, come to them from some other source” (ibid.).…
The first two rules of prayer (reverence for God and a keen sense of neediness) naturally lead to a third: humility. The humble prayer casts away all smugness or pretension and rests wholly in God’s mercy to sinners.…
Finally, a fourth rule: “we should be . . . encouraged to pray by a sure hope that our prayer will be answered” (3.20.11).
These two blogs are gentle exhortations to one of my (and your) great spiritual needs: communion with our Father. [Read the rest of “Praying in the Whirlwind”]
Words of Grace 