I love getting up in the morning, grabbing my cup of coffee, easing into my chair, and opening God’s word. My favorite way to read the Bible is straight through, and that’s what I’m doing this year.
By God’s grace I can truly say that I love his Word. I desire it, I delight in it, and I depend on it! On most days, I am significantly impacted by what I read and am often moved to tears. That’s because “the word of God is alive and powerful” (Heb. 4:12)!
Is it any wonder, then, why my prayers feel so pathetic? What are my words compared to God’s words? Though I am helped by praying through Scripture itself, the formulation of my own petitions, requests, and expressions of praise and thanksgiving seem so weak, so superficial, so insubstantial, so unworthy of God.
Such thoughts plagued me again this morning as I fumbled through prayer. Then I thought of multiple Scripture verses which make it clear that God beckons his children time and time again to pray to him. Once when Jesus had finished praying, “one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord teach us to pray….’ And he said to them, ‘When you pray, say: “Father….”’” (Luke 11:1).
Amid my muddled prayer in that moment, it occurred to me that I am praying to God as my Father.
What was it like when my children were young and had a very limited vocabulary, at one point just learning to talk? How did I react when they could say nothing more than “Da-da?”
Did I rebuke them? Did I chide them for their infantile language? No! Far from it! I delighted to hear them call my name, to talk to me with whatever words they knew – simply because they were my children. I loved them, and I knew they loved me.
If that’s true of us as human parents, how much more so is it true of our Father in heaven? “Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!” (Ps. 66:20).
God hears my prayer not because of how eloquent it is or deserving I am but because of who Christ is and what he has done to bring me to God (1 Pet. 3:18). I can approach the throne of grace confidently, knowing that I have been reconciled to God through faith in his Son (Heb. 4:16). Because Christ is my brother (Heb. 2:10-11), God is my Father, and I am his beloved child.
The same is true of you, fellow believer. So, go to God in prayer. Focus not on how good your prayer is, but on how good our God is.