People tell me all the time that they don’t know how to pray for themselves. Don’t know what to do in a hard situation? Can’t find the words amid the jumble of thoughts and mixed feelings? Yeah, I get that.
But I know how we tend to fall into thinking we need to pray the solution, and that’s just hard and overwhelming, not to mention that we have it all backwards. Prayer isn’t about us figuring it out, so we can ask God to do the proper things. As if He will stand helpless until we know just the right answers to pray for. Nor is it a matter of finding the formula that will enlist God’s service on our behalf. He is already on our side, and ready to pour out abundance, if we will only be still and receive it. Like Paul writes to the early believers, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32)
Prayer is about pouring out our hearts to God and then filling it back up with His truth. And truly there is nothing better for that than the Musician-King’s songs. If circumstances shake your world, pray his songs of faith. If your heart is broken over sin, pray his songs of repentance. If the voice of the Enemy is whispering dark in your head, pray the songs of deliverance and victory. And in all things, at all times, pray his songs of praise that shift your eyes from the difficulty to the One who loves you.
So when you are running out of hope, or running out of words, or just plain running scared, pray the heartfelt prayers that have stood the test of time, and let them point your heart in the right direction. We don’t have to know how to pray for ourselves, we just have to come into His presence, because Paul is writing in the same letter about how “… the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (verses 26-27)
How wonderful to know that our difficulties are on His mind, and He is expressing our struggling hearts in just the right ways to the Father, who is working all things out for our good and His glory.
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Trust in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge
Psalm 62:8
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Take this fainted heart
Even When It Hurts, Hillsong United
Take these tainted hands
Wash me in Your love
Come like grace again
Even when my strength is lost
I’ll praise You
Even when I have no song
I’ll praise You
Even when it’s hard to find the words
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise
Take this mountain weight
Take these ocean tears
Hold me through the trial
Come like hope again
Even when the fight seems lost
I’ll praise You
Even when it hurts like hell
I’ll praise You
Even when it makes no sense to sing
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise
And my heart burns only for You
You are all, You are all I want
And my soul waits only for You
And I will sing ’til the morning has come…
Even when the morning comes
I’ll praise You
Even when the fight is won
I’ll praise You
Even when my time on earth is done
Louder then I’ll sing Your praise
I will only sing Your praise