A.W. Tozer
Another spiritual writer of unusual penetration has advised frankness in prayer even to a degree that might appear to be downright rudeness. When you come to prayer, he says, and find that you have no taste for it, tell God so without mincing words. If God and spiritual things bore you, admit it frankly. This advice will shock some squeamish saints, but it is altogether sound nevertheless. God loves the guileless soul even when in his ignorance he is actually guilty of rashness in prayer. The Lord can cure his ignorance, but for insincerity no cure is known. (A.W. Tozer)
_________
I find this very refreshing, for it allows for the very real variability of my own prayer life. At times it will seem easy and delightful to pray. At other times, it feels like a chore, checking the box, or just checking in with God, doing what I’m supposed to do.
What I’ve found, as Tozer alludes to above, is that one or two sentences of raw honesty are worth paragraphs of insincere nonsense that I don’t really feel, nor at that moment really believe. God is not interested in what the state of my heart should be, but what it is. It is there, in the raw honesty that he can begin his work, not with the simulacrum of spirituality that I might care to present to him.
So today, I encourage you to tell it how it is. When you pray, tell God how you really feel, not how you think you should feel. Let him deal with you, not your public or spiritual persona. Let God meet you as you are.
_____
If you know someone else who would benefit from these “almost” daily devotionals, please feel free to forward this to them. They can subscribe for themselves at http://glynnorman.com in the Subscribe box at the top right of the site and receive this daily at around 10am in their inBox. Thanks.