They ought always to pray and not lose heart

Yesterday was my first day of prayer since April and my heart and soul needed that time. I desperately needed to come face to face with God and pour out my heart before him. I started by reading out of A Praying Life and it was convicting and comforting all at once. As soon as I began reading about prayer I was immediately aware of how little I pray and how vastly reliant on myself rather than God I have been. But the encouragement given is to see every failure and sin struggle as a doorway into grace. 

Because I have sinned or fallen or failed, I am now qualified for God’s radically undeserved grace in Christ which I can access and experience in honest prayer. If my sin turns me away in despair from God, I am only living in direct opposition to a right understanding of the gospel. Because of the gospel, I must not deny or excuse away my sin, neither should I be crushed beyond hope by it. Instead, my terrible praying, my distracted praying, my lack of praying...ought to drive me to desperate praying. “Lord, I am a miserable failure at this. I can’t keep my focus. I don’t even want to pray. So here I am. Open to you. Honest with you. Please transform my wicked, distracted heart to fear your name. I can’t even pray or ask for help without your help, so here I am. Help me, Jesus.” 

I was convicted as well of my cynicism in prayer. Do I really believe that God works through the prayers of his people the way the Word so clearly teaches? Ah, my prayers don’t demonstrate that! All I can think of is all of the situations, people, worries, and burdens I haven’t taken to God, choosing instead to make plans and work hard and busy myself so that everything works out okay. I am asking him to believe more and have more faith and have a greater reliance on him so that my first response to a need or concern is, let’s ask God for his help. 

If I am honest, the joys of marriage are far greater than I could have imagined, but the pain of marriage is that it is revealing to me that I am not at all the person I thought I was. I have felt consumed with shame and despair that I am not the wife I thought I would be. Yet isn't that the grace of the gospel at work? Of course I am not as good as I thought I was. Every day until glory will only show that more. And yet each deeper understanding of my sinful heart is a doorway to more of God's forgiving and transforming grace. "We will have no reason to pray until we know that we are helpless." My sin is my ticket to prayer and to seeking the transforming goodness of my holy God. Until I know that I am unable to fix or clean myself, I will not really seek after him. Instead, I will be satisfied with the way things are, content to repent here and there of vague sins but without grief and sorrow. Without pleading for redemptive change. 

Here is the joy of following a suffering Savior. He was made perfect through suffering, and so too, am I. He had no sin to be sanctified of, and yet he learned and somehow was made perfect through the trials he experienced here. I suffer often because I sin often, but in my suffering, I taste his grace. I taste the forgiveness which is only glorious when I have seen the true ugliness of my sin. I savor the joy of one day being made complete and the lessons coming to an end. I taste the joy of heaven in intimate surrender to Christ. I taste the peace of ultimate dependence on my Father. Glory!