Somehow we usually find talking to others quite easy but talking to God surprisingly onerous. Ole Hallesby said that his worst sins were his neglect of prayer. We often feel guilty in our private prayers, because we pray so badly. Richard Baxter asked: ‘In secret prayer, is not thy heart urging thee to cut it short, and frequently making a motion to have done?’ It is either that or we ramble around, like a miner fossicking for gold, but never quite finding any. We feel more at home in the world of sms than that of communicating to the living God.
What are some of the barriers on our side to effective praying? There are, indeed, many. We may profess to be religious, but we often simply fail to pray (James 4:2). Or if we do pray, it is with wrong motives, that we may spend what we get on our pleasures (James 4:3). We may kneel but our hearts and minds may be full of unbelief and doubt (James 1:5-7). If we cherish sin in our hearts or we turn a deaf ear to God’s law, our prayers will be unheard in heaven (Ps.66:18; Prov.28:9). The prayers of a husband and wife may be hindered because the husband is not treating his wife considerately (1 Pet.3:7). Equally as likely, we may have become impervious to the cries of the poor, and so God will not hear us (Prov.21:13).
There is nothing quite like a resentful unforgiving spirit to close the gates of heaven to our prayer (Mark 11:25). Even the act of prayer can become a substitute for true prayer. Jesus warned about being like the Pharisees who tried to make a show of prayer, so as to gain a reputation for piety (Matt.6:5-6). We are perfectly of reproducing such a sin in an evangelical guise. Samuel Hebich became a missionary in India, but part of his spiritual awakening came when he noticed that he was far more devout, outwardly at least, when a certain young woman was present. He was not really praying to God; he was trying to impress a young lady! The realisation of this led him to pray that he would fix his eyes on Jesus first. As Augustine said: ‘he who would be heard by God, let him first give ear to God.’
All this might weigh us down to the point where we are tempted to think we will never succeed at prayer. It is hard work (cf. Col.4:2)! Andrew Bonar wrote in his diary: ‘I see that unless I keep up short prayer every day throughout the whole day, at intervals, I lose the spirit of prayer.’ How can we be encouraged to do this?
We should remember that we have two divine helps. First, there is Christ our Saviour who is able to save those who draw near to God through Him ‘since He always lives to make intercession for them’ (Heb.7:25). Christ is at the right hand of God making intercession for those for whom He died (Rom.8:34). If we are Christians, we tend to think often of Christ’s death and resurrection – not as much as we should, admittedly – but we are prone to think less of the risen Saviour interceding for us.
The second divine help comes from the Holy Spirit. Paul writes: ‘Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words’ (Rom.8:26). Christ intercedes in heaven for weak Christians, and the Holy Spirit does the same thing on earth for those same weak believers. We are told to pray in secret (Matt.6:6), but that does mean we are alone. The Son of God and the Holy Spirit are helping us.
There are so many barriers to our praying, but look to Christ and the Holy Spirit as our divine helps. No doubt something like this is behind C. S. Lewis’ observation: ‘Don’t you find that, if you keep your mind fixed upon God, you will automatically think of the person you are praying for; but that there is no tendency for it to work the other way round?’ There is food for prayer.