Most any serious book on prayer will contain at least one chapter on “Hindrances to Prayer.” I myself, in years past, have preached on the subject more than a few times. But I have come to see that with many of us, the one main hindrance in our prayer life is majoring on what is hindering us. The best place to find out what is hampering us, is in prayer itself; Jesus said, it’s at the altar of prayer that we remember our wrongs (Matt.5:23).
I find the two central elements that encourage me to pray are expressed by David in Psalms; “O thou that hearest prayer…”; and, “Moses and Aaron…and Samuel…they called upon the Lord, and he answered them.” David believed in a prayer hearing and prayer answering God. It is important to note that the three men he mentions, along with himself, had much to be desired in qualifying them as worthy recipients of answered prayer.
I had an old evangelist friend, now with the Lord, who used to say, “Just pray!” Stop worrying about crossing your t’s and dotting the I’s. God knows where you’re at in your Spiritual life; no one else does. A sincere humility and well meaning intentions in the heart go long way with God (1Kgs.8:18). I believe there is something going on between each genuine child of God and their Heavenly Father, which the other kids know nothing about! Like, “Benjamin’s mess was five times so much as any of theirs.” There’s no understanding or explaining it, there are times when the biggest “messes” get the biggest “mess.” I think it’s called GRACE!
We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. — C.S. Lewis
No comments:
Post a Comment