This year God has been teaching and leading me deeper into prayer. It’s been a real journey and has involved some wonderful times of intimacy with Him.
At the same time I’ve been struggling with being busy and tired, and the other day, I woke up for my prayer time feeling totally flat. Tired, struggling, getting sick. I thought: I don’t have the energy to pray! Still, because I wanted to be disciplined, I went to my prayer place and sat down. Deflated, I said to God: “I’m here God. Is that enough for you?”
And I felt He said this in response:
“Wrong question. I am enough for you.”
Whoah.
I’d forgotten that prayer is a gift, and while it takes some discipline to receive the gift, the discipline serves the relationship and not the other way around. But I’d imagined it was my job to make it happen; my responsibility to invoke a sort of prayerful feeling. Because I didn’t feel up to much, I had begun my prayer time deflated and defeated. I’m very thankful God set my thinking straight.
Earlier this year Kevin preached on learning to carry the ‘easy yoke’ of Jesus. Learning that easy yoke means continually going to Him in prayer, and even more, it means relying on Him for that prayer! Jesus intercedes for us; the spirit groans when we are wordless, and His grace is sufficient in our weakness.
After I heard that word of rebuke, I just lay there listening to some devotional worship music and giving thanks to God for the truths I was hearing. I found rest and peace for that morning. Sometimes we can get so tied up with our own ideas of what we think God wants from us, that we forget to just ask. I encourage you, in prayer and in life, to seek God, and when confronted with things you do not think you can handle, to remember that His grace is enough for you.
Mark Day
