Prayer is difficult for me. It seldom comes easily. Oh, I can mouth words on short notice. I can address them to God through Christ and sign off with an “Amen.” But should one call that prayer? Somehow I hesitate to equate just saying words with prayer.
All too frequently I have felt like Job trying to find God. “Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I can-not perceive him; on the left hand I seek him, but I cannot behold him; I turn to the right hand, but I cannot see him” (Job 23:8-9).
In Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner,” I have often found myself:
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray,
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
Prayer is difficult for me because of sin, lack of sincerity, inattention, attitudes, failure to surrender, carelessness, a deficiency of faith, moodiness, routine, selfishness, failure to take time, and a hundred and one other reasons.
Several years ago the archbishop of
“Have you said your prayers this morning?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say in your prayers?”
“I talked to God.”
“How long did you talk to God?”
“I talked to God for one minute. But it took me twenty-nine minutes to get there.”
Sometimes some of us can’t get there in twenty-nine minutes. Maybe that is why Herbert said, “He that will learn to pray, let him go to Sea.” Even Seneca acknowledged, “Fear of death drives the wretched to prayer.”
True prayers are difficult to say. And the answers can be just as difficult. “Nothing costs so much as what is bought by prayers.”
Nevertheless, “Pray without ceasing.”