Thursday, June 25, 2009

God Delights in Your Cruddy Prayers

As a writer and a prideful person, I am always trying to impress people with words. It is a relief, though, that I cannot impress God and that he approves of me in Christ anyway.
“The gospel, God’s free gift of grace in Jesus, only works when we realize we don’t have it all together. The same is true for prayer. The very thing we are allergic to—our helplessness—is what makes prayer work. It works because we are helpless. We can’t do life on our own.

Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives us his gift of help. We look at the inadequacy of our praying and give up, thinking something is wrong with us. God looks as the adequacy of his Son and delights in our sloppy, meandering prayers.”

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life

HT: Of First Importance

1 comment:

Ken Stoll said...

...this is awesome. I have reflected on it for weeks now just about every time I go to spend some quality time in prayer.