Nothing jerks our prayers out of the “blessed generality” stage like a crisis. The best kind of crisis for that is for a close loved one to get in serious trouble–car wreck, cancer, emergency surgery, that sort of thing.
But a close second is a personal crisis, the kind where someone is making life miserable for you and it’s taking all the reserves you can muster to get out of bed in the morning and walk into one more day. You either quit praying altogether, the worst possible choice, or your prayers lose their vain repetitions and meaningless phrases and get down to business.
Yesterday, going through a stack of notes from the 1990s, I found such a prayer of mine, written in the thick of church conflict. It’s undated, so there’s no way of determining what particular struggle was going on then. We went through so many, the first six or seven years of my 14-year pastorate at the last church we served.
The prayer was written in longhand and filled two pages. It’s about as specific as one would want a prayer to be. No more “bless him” and “help her.” But on the other hand, it does not call names and I’m glad to report, it’s not as harsh as some of the Psalms where David or whoever is praying for the children of his enemies to not live to see that day’s sunset.
Here is the prayer, along with a few comments. I send it forth in the hope that some servant of the Lord in the fight of his life may find encouragement to hang tough and be faithful.
“Father, what I’m praying for is that….
1) Everything I preach may come from thee. Lead me please regarding subjects, texts, stories, applications, and especially in the delivery.”
When people are fighting the pastor, invariably they attack his sermons. The critics are hitting us where we are most vulnerable, because few of us feel that our preaching is all it should be. They will find fault with what you are preaching, the scriptures you use, the stories you tell, the way you say it, everything. If you are doing all things well, they will criticize your tie–or the lack of one.
The remedy is to turn their opposition into motivation to pray harder, study more diligently, and do everything you know in order to preach the sharpest, most powerful sermons you’re capable of doing.