Every Christian knows the importance of prayer to their spiritual well-being and yet you rarely find a Christian who is satisfied with their prayer life. Praying also seems pretty easy to do, however, it can be the hardest spiritual disciplines to do and the hardest to actually find pleasure doing. How many times do we struggle to consistently be engaged in prayer and how many times do our prayers feel dry and aimless? You soon began to feel like you are saying a lot words (sometimes the same words) and yet not saying much at all. If you are like me you desire to pray more and pray better, but borrowing a phrase doing its rounds on social media “the struggle is real”.
Struggling in prayer can be rather frustrating. You may genuinely desire to pray, even set a time for prayer and yet when the set time comes you struggle to get round to praying; and the times you actually do pray, the prayers are labored, just listen to our prayers at meal times to get a feel of our struggle. So how exactly does one learn how pray sincerely and meaningfully? Desperation!
It is said desperate situations call for desperate measures, well I beg to differ desperate situations call for desperate prayer. I recently was hit from all sides and angles with issues that not only drained the life out me but also left me clueless and totally out depth. Yes I prayed as is to be expected and I went about trying to apply all the little knowledge I have acquired and nothing seemed to work, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Then it hit, I had no answers, no solutions and there was absolutely nothing I could do to solve or deal with the different issues that were unrelenting. I was desperate. And in my desperation I cried out to God, and like a child speaking to the father I poured my heart out to him. I acknowledged I was totally unable apart from Him and His grace and trying to do life and serve Him in my own ability has only made things worse.
As I reflect on that moment I realized that though it was an agonizing experience and my praying was out of desperation it was at the same time sweet communion with God. And I wondered why not enjoy such communion on a daily basis? The answer is simple, I am self-sufficient. I am not desperate on a daily basis because I somehow believe I can manage my life and responsibilities on my own and therefore, do not pray with desperation. My head and mouth say God is sovereign and in control but my life screams I am in control of things. I am thankful the Lord allowed the many issues to teach me to pray earnestly, simply and with deep desperation.
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