The grip of prayer

I have found in my life that living a life of constant prayer is a nice, but seldom enjoyed experience. I would love for all of my thoughts to be directed back to conversation with God, but as the day goes on this happens with only a percentage of my thoughts.

I find two reasons for this. First, we fail to pray habitually because we have not learned anew what prayer is like. Prayer is such a mysterious blessing that it feels new more often than anything else I know. When I have re-taught myself how to pray in the morning, it returns to me much more easily.

The second reason I fail to pray in each though is directly related to the text of Give Praise to God on pages 306 and 307. As I stated before, prayer is a mysterious blessing. How are we to know when our prayers have become arrogant, or when we have asked more often then we should, and not praised enough? How are we to know when our prayers have become little different than talking to ourselves? It all comes back to what this class has seen as foundational time and again: sola scriptura. Only by the word of God do we find it possible to pray appropriately. Why else do those who had the very closest of relationships with Jesus Christ on earth ask him how it is that they can pray? Is it not terribly apparent that prayer is a discipline impossible without heavy reliance on revelation?

It is for this reason that I find the text so helpful. We must practice "prayerful reading". We must practice "praying that same section."

Only when we come to a point of emptiness in ourselves do we find prayer as God intended it. He never longed to be like another human friend, but rather, one who is seen with "reverence and awe" (Heb. 12:28). "Reverence and awe" are wonderful reasons to scour the scriptures for ways to worship God more appropriately. He is a loving God, but as the text states "the radiant glory of this consuming fire (Heb. 12:29) dazzles angels without ceasing. The infinite power of this never-ending fire illuminates heaven forever."

Would we find some way to love a God of such untouchable majesty? I pray that we will not be so arrogant as to try without trembling through scriptures that show how worship is to be done.