Skip to content ↓

Lord, Help Me To Pray

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:

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.


  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 15)

    A La Carte: Sharing our struggles / The danger of inaction / “You don’t love your daughter” / A godly sense of humor / Three excuses for not reading your Bible / A closer look at Noah’s ark / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 14)

    A La Carte: Distorted doctrine destroys lives / Making sense of bad things / Be the Jonathan / A bridegroom of blood / Administrative sludge / Musical elements / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Prayer

    Spread Too Thin

    With so much to do, we can easily begin to wonder whether prayer is an appropriate use of scarce time. Wouldn’t it be better to give my attention to something that would let me cross something off my to-do list?

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    Weekend A La Carte (July 12)

    A La Carte: Where art thou Rob Bell? / The case against in vitro fertilization / Praying and weeping for those suffering in Texas / Greet each other with a holy hug / The example of Jimmy Swaggart / and more.

  • Thriving Marriage

    Thriving Marriage

    I have often wondered about the best time to write a book about marriage. When a couple is young, there is so much about marriage they have not yet experienced. They can still impart wisdom and teach lessons, of course, but there is so much of marriage that remains unknown to them. Yet when a…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (July 11)

    A La Carte: Falling out of repentance / Tattoos as confession / The Epstein List and secret sins / Teaching generosity / Lessons from a former youth pastor / Bedbugs in the bowels of the city.