Praying From The Heart: How Can That Ever Work?

I’m just going to say it.  I don’t understand praying from the heart.

How is praying from the heart supposed to work at all when it is full of selfishness, evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. and all kinds of greed?

Sorry for busting your bubble if you thought your heart was filled with good things from the start.  The good things and the longing to do good come from God Himself.

And then to make matters worse we often expect that th
e Lord would answer our prayers (when we don’t even know what to pray for in the first place…if praying from the heart) just the way we want Him to…as if our Savior was some sort of butler who exists only to serve us and keep us happy and pain free….forgetting that He is the one with the big picture and that He is in charge…and then we get frustrated when prayers go unanswered (because we were praying for the wrong thing) or get answered differently than hoped (because He’s the one we’re supposed to be following and relying on….not our little plans and ideas that aren’t as good as we think they are) then we get frustrated because we forget who’s in control and that His ways are higher than ours. It’s His long term and perfect will that is supposed to be done on earth as it is in heaven (not our short term wills that constantly change) It’s no wonder we don’t know what we ought to pray for when we’re praying from a place like that.

Perhaps if we actually let our Savior refine our hearts like He wants to then we would be bent toward actually wanting His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  We need His strength to make this happen though.  We will fail on our own

I’m the worst at coming up prayers on a whim.  You’re praying to both the King of Kings (so you have to be reverent) and the Friend of Sinners (so you have to be real with what’s going on.)  Whatever it is, He knows all about it and has a better plan for the situation than whatever I could come up with so I usually just pray that He would do what He wants to and that I wouldn’t try to jump out front and get in the way. After all he’s the one who’s supposed to be leading…not me.

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