Praying Without Losing Heart

All the lessons that Mike read this morning have to do with prayer. And that passage that he read from Genesis, where Abraham is really haggling with God to try to save Sodom, was not something that he was doing in a spirit of flippancy, but it was tremendous intercession. All of us here, I think, are conscious also of the fact that at the root of our ministries, and each of us here who's been called to follow Jesus has been immediately called into a ministry.

And at the root of that ministry is prayer. But the problem is, so much of the time, we just feel like we can't do it. I can't pray.

I just can't pray. People will often say, who are serious about trying to follow Jesus, they've committed their lives to him. They're trying to walk in his will.

But now something's gone wrong. Something's happened, and it's like the spirit inside has become dry, and heaven above has turned to brass, and the soul itself is paralyzed, and I just can't pray. Sometimes that complaint means that all conscious prayer has come to an end.

The mind can't even think of words to utter in God's direction. It's similar to the experience people have after they've had a bad accident, and they don't even want to get back in a car. They continue to go around doing the things that need to be done in life.

Their appetites are still there. They still sleep at night, but they can't pray. For others to say they can't pray really means that while they continue to say their prayers, their prayers seem to have a hollow, empty, barren, unreal quality.

It's like they're talking to thin air. And for still others, they won't admit that they can't pray, not even to themselves in secret. But at the rock bottom underneath, everything in life is this unspoken and unadmitted barrier to any genuine relationship with God.

And that barrier is the lack of any expectancy that God would ever or could ever listen to what I have to say. Why is it that we find it so difficult even to find time alone with God every single day when we know that any life or faith that is worthy of a name includes that? It has to have that. Or why is it that some of us find no trouble at all in praying in a group? Somebody asks you to pray for their sickness or their cousin or anything like that, they can do it.

But then when we get alone in our room with the door shut, that precious time, which would be really the most delicious hour of the day, the spirit becomes blank. Whenever we say, I can't pray, what we're really saying is, I have lost heart. I'm discouraged.

Luke 18, and he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, in a certain city, there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, vindicate me against my adversary.

For a while, he refused. But afterward, he said to himself, though I neither fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming. And the Lord said, hear what the unrighteous judge says, and will not God vindicate his elect who cried to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily.

Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth? The widow didn't lose heart. She kept right on pastoring this man. She knew that this judge was going to come through for her.

And the elect of God who cried to him day and night, also know that they're going to be vindicated. But there is nothing in this world to support such faith. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth? The faith which continuously cries out to God and never loses heart does so in a world and surrounded by an atmosphere and a spirit that considers such kind of faith absolutely absurd.

It gets no support, but it goes right on doing it. And God hears and answers. Now the word of God to each of us, regardless of where we are at this moment, whatever our circumstances may be, is, pray and don't lose heart.

Never mind how things are going, whether they're going great or really falling apart. Never mind how you feel. Forget about what people are saying and get on with doing the one thing which is still within your power to do.

Pray. For instance, when we feel guilty before God and we want to repent and we want to get things right, but we just can't seem to do it, the one effective thing that we can do is to pray and not lose heart, even if the only prayer we can pray is, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. From Psalm 32, when I kept silent, that is, when I didn't pray, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long, still not praying.

For day and night, thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Then I finally decided to pray.

I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall everyone that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.

When our spirits are really heavy with guilt, the worst thing we can do is run and hide in the bushes like Adam and Eve. The best thing we can do is follow the example of David and go straight toward God, crying out for his help. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and clear when thou judgest." And we often say, yeah, but I've committed the same stupid sin a million times. God must be getting tired. And it's true, he is getting tired, in the sense that we can't just go on and on and on and on and think that he'll put up with this forever.

There is a limit. But this doesn't change the fact that the one helpful, effective way to begin to change and start making things right is to come with a whole mess and dump it before God, and pray, and don't lose heart. This also follows.

Same thing. When we find ourselves up against an obstacle, it just won't move out of the way. Maybe it's an impossible work situation, or a problem in a marriage, or a flaw in our own character that just won't change, and we just can't see any way out of it.

The one helpful thing we can do with this is to pray, and not lose heart. Here's this widow. She has an unrighteous judge standing between her and justice.

Nobody's taking her part. There's nobody around who's going to stand up for her. And if she's going to get any kind of satisfaction at all, it's going to have to come through that judge.

But he doesn't care. He keeps sending her away. Tell her I'm busy.

Tell her I'm out to lunch. Tell her I'm going to call the police and have her haul away, and she keeps sitting in my waiting room. Tell her her case is closed.

Doesn't matter what they tell her. She won't lose heart. She keeps coming right back, and coming right back, until this judge breaks down and does this thing which he's got to do for her.

And this is precisely what Jesus is telling us to do with the Father. He says, keep praying, and keep praying, until God himself moves the mountain. He absolutely will.

He will move it. He'll move it. Or when we feel totally dry inside, how could God ever listen to my prayers? I don't even know if I have any faith.

Strangest as it may seem, even when we're feeling like that, the most effective way to have our vision of God restored is to pray right through that desert, to keep right on praying, even if you think you're talking to thin air. Pray, and don't lose heart. I will say unto God, my rock, why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As with a sword in my bones, my enemies reproach me while they say daily unto me, where is thy God? Why art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God.

What does it mean to hope in God? But to pray and not lose heart. Don't sit around and moan. You begin to pray with your mouth, with your tongue.

Let it come out of the heart and actually cross the lips. Often we make the mistake of thinking, well, I'm praying in my mind. And that's valid, and that's good.

But especially when we're really down, it's tremendously helpful to say the words. It really helps. This ridiculous idea that we often have is that I can't pray until I feel the presence of God.

We can pray when we feel nothing. And we can pray when we're surrounded by feelings of demons. We can still pray.

And we're going to pray, and we're not going to lose heart. And we're going to transform that hope into substance by praying no matter how we feel. Finally, when our ministry is in shambles, and each of us who is following Jesus has a ministry.

Sometimes we feel like it's the airplane we just built, and now it's going to take off, and it gets about three inches off the ground and crashes. And sometimes it goes right up. Boy, it's really doing great.

But one way or another, sooner or later, our little airplane ministry is going to take a dive. And we aren't alone. Think of poor Elijah.

Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had slain all the prophets with his sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me, and more also, if I don't make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid.

And he arose and went for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, it is enough.

Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father's. And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat.

And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came to him a second time and touched him and said, arise and eat, else the journey will be too great for you.

And he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, which is another word for Sinai, the mountain of God. And there he came to a cave and lodged there. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him.

And he said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword. And I, even I, only am left.

And they seek my life to take it away. And he said, go forth and stand on the mount before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by.

And a great and strong wind rent the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake.

But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire, the voice of a gentle stillness. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle, because God was in it. Now, here was a man who was depressed to the point of wanting to die.

And he had reason. After this tremendous victory on Mount Carmel over the prophets of Baal, the whole thing fell apart. Nothing was accomplished, it seemed.

He was a hunted man. And nobody stood up for him. Nobody said, hey, you can hide in my basement.

He was on his own. And he was fed up. His ministry was in shambles.

But one thing Elijah continues to do, he continues to talk to God. He goes right on praying. He has lost heart about many things, but he has not lost heart about prayer.

How often this is the way it is with us. We come to a place where everything seems to fall apart for us. Everything we've tried to do, everything we think we've built for the kingdom of God is now in ruins.

And there's only one thing left, and that's God himself, as if that isn't enough. But now all we have is God. Now we call on God.

And when we call on God with nothing else but God, we are suddenly lifted up into a union with him, which we never dreamed could be possible on this earth. And he taught them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. Every victory Jesus won for us, every lesson he taught us, remains for each of us as an individual nothing but dead theory until we take that victory or that lesson and transform it into substance and life by drawing near to God in prayer.

And the prayer which makes the kingdom of God reality in our lives is the prayer which continues through all seasons and which refuses to lose heart. May the spirit teach us and help us to live such prayer. Let's wait a minute.

Heavenly Father, we know that we just can't pray as we ought. We don't even know how to start. Even if we've been following the Lord for 70 years, we still don't know.

We ask, Lord, that today again you would refresh us in our relationship with yourself and that you would put your finger on those things within our hearts and in our lives and minds that are barriers to our prayer life with you. And we pray that today and in the coming days, in every single one of our lives, Heavenly Father, we would be drawn out of ourself and afresh into Jesus himself and that in him we may begin to pray before your throne with a power and with an honesty and with a faithfulness and with a hope and with a confidence and with an opportunity that we have never, ever known in our lives up to this day. We ask it in Jesus' name.