Luke 11:1

A HEARTY DESIRE TO PRAY

‘Lord, teach us to pray.’

Luke 11:1

Have we this ‘hearty desire’ to pray of which the Collect for the Third Sunday after Trinity speaks to us?

I. Whence does it come?—It comes from God; it is His gift. Let us never forget this. We cannot too often call to mind that of ourselves we can do nothing that is good. Do, did I say? We cannot even wish it or conceive it; we are not ‘sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves,’ but ‘our sufficiency is of God.’ ‘The Spirit helpeth our infirmities,’ and surely one of our greatest infirmities is the reluctance and the shrinking we feel in the matter of prayer. Here, then, the Holy Spirit comes to our aid, and gives us the desire we so much need.

II. Hindrances to this desire.

(a) Inability.—We have already noticed an inability of ourselves to have this desire.

(b) Unworthiness.—We are not worthy to put up one single request to heaven. Holy men have always recognised and confessed this truth.

(c) Want of faith.—In one place Christ could not do many mighty works ‘because of their unbelief.’ And common sense will tell us that we shall never get a real love of prayer unless we are convinced of the good of it. If we do not feel any real need of the things for which we ask, nor any expectation of their being granted, must not the asking for them be a very dreary and irksome performance?

(d) Inconsistency of life.—Our lives do not match our prayers, and we are not in earnest in trying to make them do so. If a man has no longing for prayer, is it not too often because he has no longing for a holy life?

III. What is the remedy?

(a) Clearly to go on praying, and to pray more earnestly and perseveringly; never to give up, because we do not feel the delight in it that we know we ought to feel; because perseverance will bring its own reward; the more we pray, the more we shall want to pray.

(b) Doing this with the constant thought of our own weakness—always going back to the one source of strength, so that when God tells us to turn to Him, our prayer must be, ‘Turn Thou us, O Lord, and so shall we be turned.’

(c) Trying in the same strength to make our lives match our prayers, and praying for this with St. Augustine, ‘Grant, Lord, that the things we pray for and crave of Thee, for them we may also labour.’

Rev. F. J. Middlemist.

Illustration

‘My Lord and Master, be Thou my Teacher. Enrol my name among those who know not how to pray as we ought. I would be a learner in Thy school of prayer. Lord, teach me! Thou art prayer (Psalms 109:4). Breathe within me the spirit of prayer. Live within me as the Divine Intercessor. Lord, teach me to pray. Prayer that will really take hold of God’s strength. Prayer that is full of holy expectations. Prayer that “will not keep silence.” Prayer that will wait at the foot of the Cross, at the foot of the throne, at my Father’s feet. “I will direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up” (Psalms 5:3). There is nothing too small for His care. There is nothing too great for His power. There is nothing too wearying for His love.’