At the end, we will tell how to order the book.  Here is chapter one...

HAVE TROUBLE PRAYING?  NO PROBLEM.  JUST PRAY ANYWAY.

While others spring from the bed each morning eager to spend an hour with the Lord in prayer, do you feel like the only one who has to drag yourself over to a chair and open the Bible and force yourself to think spiritual thoughts?

Welcome to the club.

Others pray smoothly and eloquently and always know what to say; but you are the only one who stumbles along haltingly as though you were just learning to speak or were trying out a foreign language.

Sound familiar?

Others are never plagued by doubt and offer up these magnificent sacrifices of praise and intercession that Heaven welcomes, values as jewels, and immediately rewards; you’re the only person who fights back the doubts as you pray and wonders whether the whole business is accomplishing anything.

Others see answers to their prayers as a matter of routine; you’re the only one who doesn’t.

Yeah, right.

It does feel that way sometime.

But it’s wrong.

Way wrong.  Not so at all.

The fact is those holy people you admire so much for their piety and resent a little for their spiritual maturity fight the same battles you do.  They encounter the same temptations, struggle with the same difficulties, and know the same doubts about prayer’s effectiveness.

You’re not so different.

You’re definitely not fighting battles in your spiritual walk others have not faced, or just as likely, struggle with at this very moment.

Two of the Christian faith’s heroes, Elisabeth Elliot and C. S. Lewis, have something for us on this subject.

Those who remember Elisabeth Elliot from her lifetime of ministry, or her books and radio programs would agree she is one of the all-time outstanding Christians of any age.  She first came to the knowledge of most of us because of the death of her husband, Jim Elliot, martyred by Ecuador’s Auca Indians in 1956. Later, after serving as a missionary to those same tribes (alongside other colleagues), she wrote the story that still stands as one of the iconic missionary testimonies, Through Gates of Splendor.

Inspiring books by this amazing woman will continue blessing God’s people until Jesus returns.

You will be interested in knowing Elisabeth Elliot had the same trouble with prayer you and I do.

She said:

We keep asking the same unanswerable questions and wondering why the explanations are not forthcoming.  We doubt God.  We are anxious about everything when we have been told quite clearly to be anxious about nothing.  Instead of stewing we are supposed to pray and give thanks. (All quotes are from her book, Trusting God in a Twisted World.)

When I stumble out of bed in the morning, put on a robe and go sit in my study, words do not spring spontaneously to my lips–other than words like, ‘Lord, here I am again to talk to you. It’s cold. I’m not feeling terribly spiritual…’ Who can go on and on like that morning after morning, and who can bear to listen to it day after day?

She continues, I need help in order to worship God.

You too, Elisabeth Elliot?

We all do.

Mrs. Elliot found nothing helped her more than reading the Psalms. Sometimes, she wrote, she would open her hymnal and read these offerings of praise to tune her mind to the things of God.

Her spirituality needed jump-starting in the morning.

Just like yours; just like mine.

Elisabeth Elliot asked, “Do you know what to pray for people whom you haven’t heard from in a long time? I don’t.” In those cases, she prays prayers found in Scripture, such as the one in Ephesians 3:17-18, “…that you, rooted and founded in love yourselves, may be able to grasp…how wide and long and deep and high is the love of Christ.”

And lest we fail to get the point, Elliot adds, “My own devotional life is far from being Exhibit A of what it should be.”

Then, there is C. S. Lewis.

Since the death of this English literature professor and brother-in-Christ on the very day President Kennedy was assassinated, Lewis’ books on the Christian faith have ministered to every new crop of seeking minds on this planet at a constant pace.  His influence shows no sign of waning.  His books will never go out of print.

Elisabeth Elliot, along with every other Christian writer, quotes Lewis.  She calls him “that wise man who seems to have thought through almost everything….”

Well, surely C. S. Lewis had this prayer business all worked out, right?  He wrote so much on everything and his insights and conclusions are infused with such common sense and eureka moments that we read with awe and enjoyment. Certainly, he was one of the elites who do not struggle with doubt but glide effortlessly into prayer in the early morning hours and pray unfalteringly memorable prayers of faith that impress the Heavens and shake the world.

Here are snippets of what Lewis said about his praying.

In a letter to a friend, C. S. Lewis said however badly a good book on prayer is needed, “I shall never try to write it.”  He added, “For me to offer the world instruction about prayer would be impudence.” (All quotes are from C. S. Lewis, Mere Christian, by Kathryn Ann Lindskoog.  She points out that Lewis did indeed write that book on prayer, of course.  In fact, he wrote several.)

“He noted wryly that the worse one prays, the longer it takes.”

“He found it much easier to pray for others than for himself.”

About lists of people to pray for: “Such a long list is burdensome; it makes it a little hard to think about each person while praying.”

“He felt it unnecessary to pray for people by name; one may have lost or never known the name of a person who needs one’s prayers.  He figured God knows their names.”

It is possible that our highly respected friend, Mr. Lewis, even had the occasional error in his prayers.  Lindskoog writes, “He emphatically believed in praying for the dead!”  A couple of verses in the New Testament are given as his reasons (I Corinthians 15:20 and I Peter 3:19-20).  While most of us might find those unconvincing, one of the myriad things we admire about this man is he never demanded that readers agree with him.

I was glad to see that Lewis believed in praying about small, almost inconsequential matters.  Lindskoog writes, “Prayers about trivial matters may be good practice, anyway.  Lewis felt that high-minded religion tends to be a snare. ‘I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than of God’s.”

“Near the end of Letters to Malcolm:  Chiefly on Prayer, Lewis said that he decided to come clean. He admitted that for most people prayer is a duty, and an irksome duty at that.  He observed that we are reluctant to begin and delighted to finish.”

I expect most of us knew that, whether we admitted it to ourselves or not.  One has to wonder if we have ever admitted it to God.  Not that He doesn’t know, for He does.  Genuine prayer requires a high degree of honesty.

That may be the reason C. S. Lewis often began his prayer time with what he called his prelude to prayer. 

Concerned that his thoughts of himself and of God might be faulty and misleading, Lewis would pray, “May it be the real I who speaks.  May it be the real Thou I speak to.”

Lindskoog comments, “Lewis didn’t want is false idea of himself speaking to a bright blur in his own mind.”

In Lewis’ Footnote to All Prayers, he implores the Lord to mercifully translate the false and inferior ideas in his prayers into something that would be acceptable to Himself.

He understands.  So does she.

So does He.

Therefore, let us understand, Father, that even though we come before Thee stumbling and muttering, it’s all right.  Scripture promises the Spirit will help us in our  weakness since we do not know how to pray as we should.  Your servant, the Apostle Paul, said that.  It helps somewhat to remember that even he had the same struggles as we. 

So do not let the enemy convince us that we alone of all God’s children pray poorly.  Granted, we are like infants just learning to speak, but we recall how much the tender Father loves those attempts.

Thank you, Father.  You are gracious and loving and it is our honor to be Yours, to enter Thy presence, to offer up our prayers.  Amen. 

(This book has twelve chapters. It can be purchased for $15 from me at 203 Garden Cove, Ridgeland, MS 39157.  My Venmo account is @Joe-McKeever-7.)