Sometimes it is good to have a bit of assistance in praying. Prone to Wander is a wonderful new collection of prayers inspired by The Valley of Vision. One of those prayers is about praying–seeking God’s forgiveness for praying poorly, and seeking God’s help to pray more powerfully and skillfully. Here it is:
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Heavenly Father,
Teach us to love prayer. Help us to live our lives before you, in public and in private, at church and at home, each prayer and each moment perfumed with the incense of Christ’s atoning blood. We are invited by your promises to come to you with all our burdens and desires. Draw us by the power of your Spirit, or our hearts and minds will wander carelessly from thought to thought, and our anxieties will rule over us.
We praise you that great sin draws out great grace, for we are great sinners. We seldom want to pray, and when we do our petitions are laced with self-importance and mixed with sinful motives. We confess our ignorance, for we do not know how to pray, and we confess our willful rebellion for prayers uttered from cold and selfish lips. But we celebrate Jesus and plead his righteousness to cover our iniquities, and rejoice that his obedience weighs more heavily on your scales than all our sin and satisfies your justice in full. Where our guilt is most terrible, your mercy is most free and deep, and we thank you for this incredible grace.
Holy Spirit, by your power, may the throne of grace become the pleasure ground of our souls. There may we know the delight of our Savior’s love, the relief of repentance and reconciliation, the privilege of our sonship. Ignite our hearts with joy before you, quicken our deadness with thanksgiving, and strengthen us to cling to you, love you, and obey you. Fill us with the imagination of faith, which considers all things possible and believes that you are a God who loves to give far beyond all that we could ask or imagine. May we grow to be persistent in prayer, until Christ is the pulse of our hearts, the spokesman of our lips and the center of all our hopes and longings. In his great name we pray, amen.