Why do I pray?

 

Lately I’m noticing how many prayers are motivated by a desire for personal comfort. Heal sickness so pain and discomfort go away. Fix relationships so we are happy in them. Save my loved one and remove my worries for that person. Show the world Your goodness so I do not experience or even deal with evil.

Yesterday I saw two NT passages that say joy comes not in spite of trouble but because of trouble. Yet even the devotional writer put that joy at the end of doubts and struggles rather than while the trials were being experienced.

In another reading, Stephen Charnock, a Puritan Presbyterian pastor in the 1600s, adds another dimension to this thought. He says that a person “without doubts is without testimonies. Doubts are to testimonies what the mortise is to the tenon, the lock to the key, the enigma to the solution.”

The Lord says, “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4) yet that delight does not come to us apart from at first not having that delight. In other words, problems unlock or open my heart to the work of the Holy Spirit. For instance, without recognition and conviction of sin and a deep sense of guilt that leads to confession, I would never experience delight in knowing forgiveness and cleansing from sin.

After God does His work, He wants me to battle sin for it blinds my eyes to the wonder of God. Not only that, sin steals my delight as quickly as a pickpocket lifts a wallet. Be filled and stay filled with God’s Spirit, remembering that all flames die without the fuel that feeds them.

Again, the Bible tells me to delight in prayer. That is easy when God has answered. “Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.” (Psalm 116:2) However, such a delight reveals that its source is more likely the good life rather that in talking to my Creator. He wants that delight in Him and being with Him in prayer, no matter what is going on in my world.

Charnock says, “A Christian’s heart is — in secret — transported into heaven. There is a delight in coming near God and warming the soul by the fire of his love.” He points to angels cheerful in praise; their work is their glory. Holy souls should delight in prayer not so we think it a good day without some communion with God but because we delight in Him. When in trials, I can delight in God’s comforting presence rather than His sanctifying presence. It can be a delight to pray to God as a storehouse, but not as a refiner’s fire to purge away my dross.

Heavenly cheerfulness is mostly in heavenly things. Much asking concerns worldly goods; even less is for the glory of God. Charnock says, “The saints have redoubled and repeated their petitions and redoubled the Amen at the end of prayer, to show the great affections to those things they have asked. The soul loves to think of those things the heart is set on, and frequent thoughts express a delight.”

Is that how I pray? Reading this man’s words shows me that my soul must desire not only to speak to God, but to make melody to Him, and be more displeased when that attitude is missing than I am when God does not answer me. True delight is in exercising the grace of God in reliance and humility, desiring the preparation of my own heart as well as answers to my prayers.

Other writers says the same: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) Therefore, “It is neither talent, nor power, nor gifts that do the work of God, but it is that which lies within the power of the humblest; it is the simple, earnest life hid with Christ in God.”

Whatever gives glory to God is the vital thing, not what brings me joy or any kind of reward. The testing of my faith is to make it genuine, “more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire” so it “results in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7) not so that it makes me more comfortable or more anything. This is about Jesus, not me.

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)

PRAY: I know You reward us according to our works and give life to those who seek Your glory. I also know that as part of Your Body, I am a fellow worker and part of what You are doing, but I also know that You alone are “worthy of praise, glory, and honor” and my reward is You, not glory for myself. You promise to sustain me and keep me in Your care. For all that, I am grateful. May my focus be on You, not on personal comfort or the joy of how You make me feel, but the joy of seeing Your glory magnified and made known, both in trials and in good times. May I rejoice and be glad when Your glory is revealed. Amen.