Tempted to Pray What We Ought

Instead of what we are

Most days, it is more difficult for me to pray than it is for me to read my Bible.

I’m not exactly sure why this is the case. I think there are likely a handful of factors.

I think it can be difficult for me to pray for things like others’ health, work challenges, or other life circumstances because I know God is already aware of what troubles me, ails others, and threatens the world. And not only is he aware of these things, but he knows how they will resolve because he already exists on the other side of their resolution.

That makes it difficult for me, mentally, I think, to ask God to intervene in the here-and-now—even if I cognitively know the transformative power of prayer in the timeline of God’s workings in his creation. My knowledge of what is true doesn’t always color my wonder of what is real.

Sometimes it feels like in prayer that, at best, I’m telling God what he already knows about problems he’s already resolved through solutions he hasn’t yet revealed.

Likewise, when I get over that mental obstacle, it can be difficult for me to maintain focus in silent prayer. I know I’m not alone in this. Though I try to refrain from using my phone or other devices in my daily time of Bible reading and prayer, apps like PrayerMate have often served me well in this regard. I am a most effective and attentive prayer, I think, when I write my prayers. But this sometimes feels cumbersome, and it isn’t always possible if I feel the need to pray in the middle of the day.

Another reason it can sometimes feel difficult for me to pray is because I know what I ought to pray, and I feel compelled to pray that way rather than what I really feel, which often seems juvenile and whiny and pathetic.

But then again, I suppose Jesus does have a lot of good to say about children.

C. S. Lewis recently provided me some helpful guidance in this regard when I came across this in Letters to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer:

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.

It is so easy for me to pray what I believe I ought when I feel my prayers are too self-interested, too melodramatic, or otherwise utterly unsatisfactory for the God of the universe to hear.

We must not pray what we ought out of fear of praying what we are.

God saved us from our sin, not our selves. We don’t need to try to be holier than we are when we come to God in penititence or petition. Our admittance to approach the throne of God comes by the grace of God not the purity of our hearts or the profundity of our prayers.

God is not interested in us praying what we ought if it is not who we are. He saves us as we are, not because of who we believe we should be.

So whatever the state of your prayer life, whether yours is sometimes tenuous like mine or yours is gloriously fruitful, make sure it is yours.

Perhaps the only way we can fumble our prayers is by not bringing our real selves to them.