A week or so ago, my wife sent me this link to an article entitled The Experience of Prayer from Aish.com. I really could identify with it in regard to the author’s summary of the obstacles of prayer for the modern man. The part that really rang true was the following:
One of the truisms of prayer is that it is a non-expedient activity. By this I mean that praying as long and as intensely as one likes accomplishes nothing practical, at least as far as is immediately obvious to the one involved in prayer. In essence, then, perhaps God will respond affirmatively to my prayer, perhaps not, but at the time that I pray, any response is almost always unseen. Even over time it is rare to see a direct correlation between a specific prayer and God’s response. I can spend an hour and a half in the synagogue praying with all my heart, and at the end of that time, not one thing has moved from my in-box to my out-box. Further, much of our liturgy consists of praise of God or thanks to Him, not requests.
This perfectly sums up my struggle with prayer for the past several years. My wife realized this, so much so that she said I could have very well written those words. If you have been struggling to incorporate prayer into your daily life I encourage you to do a few things:
- Read the Aish article on prayer
- Order the Knocking on Heaven’s Gates teaching (audio or video) from FFOZ
- Review my article Prayer: Praise, Pruning, Power
- Start praying TODAY
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