Why You Shouldn’t Lose Heart When Prayer Is Difficult

John Newton found prayer to be difficult, but here’s what gave him hope:

How strange is it, that when I have the fullest convictions that prayer is not only my duty—not only necessary as the appointed means of receiving these supplies, without which I can do nothing, but likewise the greatest honor and privilege to which I can be admitted in the present life—I should still find myself so unwilling to engage in it. However, I think it is not prayer itself that I am weary of, but such prayers as mine. How can it be accounted prayer, when the heart is so little affected—when it is polluted with such a mixture of vile and vain imaginations—when I hardly know what I say myself—but I feel my mind collected one minute, the next, my thoughts are gone to the ends of the earth. If what I express with my lips were written down, and the thoughts which at the same time are passing through my heart were likewise written between the lines, the whole taken together would be such an absurd and incoherent jumble—such a medley of inconsistency, that it might pass for the ravings of a lunatic. When he points out to me the wildness of this jargon, and asks, is this a prayer fit to be presented to the holy heart-searching God? I am at a loss what to answer, till it is given to me to recollect that I am not under the law, but under grace—that my hope is to be placed, not in my own prayers, but in the righteousness and intercession of Jesus. The poorer and viler I am in myself, so much the more is the power and riches of his grace magnified in my behalf. Therefore I must, and, the Lord being my helper, I will pray on, and admire his condescension and love, that he can and does take notice of such a creature…. (Quoted in Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ—the best book I’ve read this year.)

Thank goodness “my hope is to be placed, not in my own prayers, but in the righteousness and intercession of Jesus.” May the difficulty you have praying today remind you of the riches of Christ’s grace and love!

Comments

[Sam Harper]

I can relate with that--having two lines of thought going through my mind at the same time while praying.

[kpolo]

Hmm looks like Newton simply wrote an exact description of my prayer life and struggle. That would be plagiarism! :)

[scbrownlhrm]

Barriers to prayer emerge in the "hiddenness of God", so to speak.

But then this emerges: He is nowhere absent.

A few thoughts from a discussion on the Oneness and Hiddenness of God.

“Sonderegger takes an interesting and potentially controversial line with her work: beginning from de Deo Uno. Her work may lay claim, however, to being the most Biblically informed account of the One God – God’s oneness is couched firmly within the freedom of God and a rejection of idolatry as seen within ancient Israel’s life.

The method here is profoundly apophatic – God’s oneness, for Sonderegger, is always seen in contrast to the created, visible idol. In fact, the contrast to the visible or the created serves as a way to highlight the absolute qualitative distinction between the being of God and the being of everything else:

‘Radical oneness, radical uniqueness, demands thought beyond any class, any universal, any likeness. This is an annihilating concreteness.’ (p. 25)

Sonderegger develops this theme in conversation with Aquinas – where we see that God doesn’t belong to oneness or any kind of genus or concept – the conclusion is drawn that oneness isn’t an attribute of God, but rather God’s oneness just is His being:

‘Now, God is His existence. His essence and existence are One, and God is therefore the Necessary Being. Just this is what it means for God to have “life in Himself.” God’s reality is then utterly unique. God’s oneness does not add to His unique reality; it is not “a number” nor an addition or “accident” to His reality. Rather, Unicity just is His being. God does not “share being” with all that is, nor is He supreme among them. God is real, utterly and perfectly and ineffably real.’ (p. 34)

Sonderegger next treats God’s omnipresence and develops an account of divine hiddenness:

‘…the principle lesson of these repeated movements upward, beyond the earth into the heavens, is not to disclose that God is there and not here, not in one place and so absent in another, but rather that in virtue of His invisible habitation, the Lord’s modal Reality as the Hidden one is compatible with His earthly presence among his creatures.’ (p.67)

Sonderegger shortly after turns to what she calls ‘theological compatibilism’, which is a major part of her doctrine of divine hiddenness. In her reading of Exodus 3:1-8, she notes some major metaphysical and epistemological themes, which can be summarized roughly as (1) God is compatible with his creatures and (2) ‘God is known a se in our words turned towards Him’ (p. 86):

‘The Lord God can Himself dwell with creatures. and the creature endure, abide, speak. Note what follows. When the burning bush is placed in the center of dogmatics, every other doctrine radiates its light: the cosmos is phosperic, Light bearing. God’s Presence – His Omnipresence – is compatible with nature, with human history, with human flesh, with bread and wine and water and oil, with the saints, militant and at rest. God Himself! Exodus makes it plain that the Reality of God is present in the fiery bush, not simply a divine effect or sign or “energy”.’ (p. 81)

Perhaps most interesting so far is Sonderegger’s position on divine predication, which is neither strictly analogical, univocal, or Barthian but rather affirms that our words can, and do, refer to God – even going so far as to say that our words are (gasp) intrinsically fitting to refer to God:

‘Now, for my part, I say that there is indeed a fittingness, intrinsic to the creaturely word, that allows our language to reach out and lay hold of its Divine Object: just this is the “negative” Attribute”, most especially, the Attribute of Divine Hiddenness and Invisibility. Now we do not expect too much of these negative terms. They point; they glimpse; they say in ordinary and rough-and-ready way the exceeding Mystery and Dark Light of Almighty God, his Nearness as the Unseen One. Or to echo Barth’s own idiom more closely: Divine Invisibility is revealed to us in Holy Scripture. But it is not in virtue of its being revealed – and only that – that the words Hidden and Invisible aptly draw near to the one, formless, and Unique God. It is indeed that the Lord wills that His very own Reality is compatible with our naming him; he makes the creature a fit home for himself. But God is the “most liberal giver”, as Thomas Aquinas famously says, and He has set up for Himself a temple, a house, in the land of creaturely words; He gives us this gift and settles there.’ (p. 105)

These are a few of the more interesting points Sonderegger makes within the first third or so of the book (which is about how far I am). There is a lot here – a lot – and I’ve not even skimmed the surface. A lot could be said about her methodology – explicitly defying Kantian strictures, for example, or refusing to start from Christological principles – and no doubt a lot will, both here and in the wider theo-blogging world. But for now, these are a few of the choice parts of the book. More to come.”