This happens too often, and it’s frustrating.

A fellow who reads this blog emailed to say, “I’ve been asked to serve on an ordination council.”  He asked a couple of questions, then said, “What would be some good questions for me to ask the candidate?”  I replied at length, then hit “send.”  A few minutes later, my email was returned to me.  “Undeliverable,” said the message.

I resent the message.  Same thing happened.

Arghhh.  What to do now?

Mostly, when this happens–and as I say, it occurs more often than one might expect–I keep trying to resend it or I might put a message on our website in hope the person will see it.

If he doesn’t, what will he think?  Either that I did not get his email or  received it but did not reply, both of which are wrong.

Is this like unanswered prayer, I wonder?

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“Pray without ceasing.”  — I Thessalonians 5:17.

I do not imply that I know more about prayer than you.  I hate to hear anyone celebrated as “an expert in prayer,” for the simple reason that no child should be called an expert in talking to his/her parent.  What’s so hard about that?

Granted, we make it harder than it should be, with our rules, our religions, our legalism, our opinions, our blindness, and our sinfulness.  But in its essence, prayer is talking to the Father through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Period.

What I do imply however (for this article) is that there are insights in Scripture on the subject of prayer many of us may have missed.  Here are a few……

One. Scripture says you do not know how to pray as you should.  That’s Romans 8:26. So, let’s not let that stop us.  God’s not looking for eloquence but faith.

Two.  Scripture says both the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus are interceding for us.  That is Romans 8:26 and 8:34.  Now, personally, I have no idea how this works, particularly when Romans 8:31 says “God is for us!”  So, it appears the Triune God is on our side!

Three. Scripture says the best pray-ers were Moses and Samuel.  That’s Jeremiah 15:1.

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“Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17).

Not long ago, my wife and I attended the funeral of a distant in-law kind of relative.  We enjoyed meeting friends and making new ones, and were blessed by the service.  It was all great except for one thing.

Something big was missing.

Not a single prayer was uttered.  Not the first one.

One wonders if the leaders remembered later and said something like, “Oh my–I forgot to pray.”

It would appear that a lot of people are forgetting to pray these days.  We should find that extremely disturbing.  And more than a little revealing.

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In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know how to pray as we should.  But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  (Romans 8:26)

Tomorrow is the National Day of Prayer.  That’s a good thing.  It keeps us focused on the importance of prayer, and probably dumps a load of guilt on all of us for not praying more or better.

Three aspects of prayer make it difficult, and probably even unreasonable.  And then, one overwhelming reality keeps us at it with the strong confidence that praying is the best thing we can ever do.

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“And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites… Therefore, do not be like them…” (Matthew 6:8).

All right, class, listen up.  If you expect to be the next generation of hypocrites, you need to give me your full attention.  The old Pharisees will be passing off the scene before long, and we’ll need a new class of the double-minded–you know, the play-actors–ready to step up and fill their ranks.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek now, everyone?  All right. Let us proceed….

It’s not easy being a hypocrite.  You’re always working on two levels, keeping things to yourself while presenting another image to the world.  And that’s hard.  It takes a pretty smart person to pull this off.  Shallow lazy people can be a lot of things, but not a successful Pharisee.

Scripture says “a double-minded person is unstable in all his ways;  he should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” That’s James 1:7-8.  We cite it here for two reasons. First, to say how tough our calling is, and second, to remind ourselves that being hypocrites we’re not expecting to receive anything from the Lord for our prayers.  That’s not the point.

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