You say, “I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich, and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.
Revelation 3:17,18
One thing that happens in studying about prayer is that in order to really have personal contact with God, we need to come bowed down, with no arrogance, in a yielded attitude. Sometimes we think of God as too much of a pal, even though He calls Himself our friend—and lose the view of how Majestic He is!
Matthew 6:7,8—Jesus in describing prayer to his seeking disciples said “Do not think you will be heard because of your many words, because your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” I have never been in a class where this verse is mentioned that someone in the class didn’t articulate the obvious question— ”then, why are we praying?” The truth is, it isn’t God who doesn’t know about things—WE are the ones who don’t know what we need.
The most persistent wrong belief about prayer is that we have to explain things to God, beg for things from God, and insist on our will from God. Nothing could be more of a mistake or a bigger problem in the life of prayer. We go to God in the first place, because HE knows what He wants to do. He knows what we need, and HE knows the circumstances that we are troubled about far better than we do. So we go to God with our hearts bent to receive His wisdom, knowledge of His will, and a resolution to whatever it is we are considering.
Most of us have spent many years explaining to God what He should do. Keep in mind that the word ASK means “to inquire of the Lord,” in order to find out what He wants, knows and wills. Asking is not begging, or insisting on our own way. There are times when we are so needy that we absolutely cannot do anything but want what we want. What then? Philippians 2:13 tells us “He works within us to will and to do His good pleasure!”
He works within us to will His will when our will can’t yield. It is amazing how much yielding up of our own abilities we have to do in order to really pray. We hear so many “Do this, Do that” prayers—but friends, God would have us know that we are not the boss. He is Lord, we aren’t. We must ask Him to show us what we look like to Him, and then we will see how truly needy we are. The verse above will be one we will have to agree with— we are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. The trouble seems to be that we have learned to cope with so many things that we don’t know how needy we are.
Frustration in prayer is used by the Lord to show us that without Him we can truly do-NOTHING—not even pray! Lord, have mercy on us and produce in us a yielded heart. Admittance to the school of prayer is by an entrance test with only two questions. The first one is: Are you in real need? The second is: Do you admit that you are helpless to handle that need? Why would God insist on helplessness as a prerequisite to answered prayer?
One obvious reason is because our human helplessness is a bed-rock fact. God is a realist and insists that we be realists, too.
"Admittance to the school of prayer is by an entrance test with only two questions. The first one is: Are you in real need? The second is: Do you admit that you are helpless to handle that need?
Why would God insist on helplessness as a prerequisite to answered prayer?
One obvious reason is because our human helplessness is a bedrock fact. God is a realist and insists that we be realists too. So long as we are deluding ourselves that human resources can supply our heart's desire, we are believing a lie."
- Catherine Marshall
"The first thing that makes prayer acceptable to God is the brokenness and humility of the one who prays. “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray. I will hear from heaven.”
In other words, what makes a heart upright and what makes prayers pleasing to God is a felt awareness of our tremendous need for mercy."
- John Piper
Prayer is radical conversion of all our mental processes because in prayer we move away from ourselves, our worries, preoccupations, and self-gratification— and direct all that we recognize as ours to God in the simple trust that through His love all will be made new."
- Henry Nouwen
"The deepest prayer at its nub is a perpetual surrender to God. God gives where He finds empty hands."
- Thomas Merton
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