Prayer Is work

This semester we'll be dwelling on the theology of prayer, as well as giving ourselves to its practice. But here's the thing. Prayer isn't easy. Rarely is it a glorious and effortless spiritual experience. Here's what E. M. Bounds has to say:

Prayer is spiritual work; and human nature does not like taxing, spiritual work. Human nature wants to sail to heaven under a favoring breeze, a full, smooth sea. Prayer is humbling work. It abases intellect and pride, crucifies vainglory, and signs our spiritual bankruptcy, and all these are hard for flesh and blood to bear. It is easier…

…not to pray than to bear them. So we come to one of the crying evils of these times, maybe of all times—little or no praying. Of these two evils, perhaps little praying is worse than no praying. Little praying is a kind of make-believe, a salvo for the conscience, a farce and a delusion. ("Prayer, the Great Essential," The Power of Prayer)

While preaching on Psalm 32 a couple of years ago, verse 6 struck me:

Let everyone who is godly pray to You in a time when You may be found.

God struck me with what might be an obvious truth to you, but only while preaching did it come alive for me: that is, prayer marks the people of God. It is the "godly" who pray to God. And those who pray to God are godly. "Well, duh," you say. But ask yourself, are you godly? Is your life characterized by prayer? If you are in Christ, prayer should be one of the absolute clearest signs that sets you apart from the ungodly.

So do you pray? If not, why not? Is your hope in the Lord? Are you a slave of Christ, or a slave of sin?

Now don't get confused, just because praying is hard for you does not mean that you're necessarily ungodly. The godliest of men, and the strongest in prayer, testify that prayer is taxing, spiritual work. Here's Bunyan:

As for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God, and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers, first to beg of God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there. Nay, many times I know not what to pray for, I am so blind, nor how to pray, I am so ignorant; only, blessed be grace, the Spirit helps our infirmities. (Prayer [Banner of Truth, 2012])

Prayer is hard work. Not because it involves complex incantations or psychological meditation, but because our flesh is so strong. And you can be sure that your flesh will cry out "Stop it!" when you go to fellowship with God in prayer. And beyond your flesh, Satan knows that prayer is where real battle is engaged, so he engages his cunning attempts to set you off it:

Ay, says Satan, you may pray indeed, but you will not prevail. Your heart is hard, cold, dull, and dead; you do not pray with the Spirit, you do not pray in good earnest, your thoughts are running after other things, when you pretend to pray to God. Away hypocrite, go no further, it is but in vain to strive any longer! (Bunyan again)

Brothers and sisters, strive in prayer. Expect it to be work. Expect it to tax you. But expect great rewards.