The problems, and the possibility, of prayer

In my experience, most Christians struggle to make regular, disciplined prayer a part of their daily life.  That's terrible news, because all of us desperately need God's help for whatever we do.

But with this in mind, I've taken a lot of help recently from Psalm 5, comparing the problems that we think we have in praying with the problems that God says we have in praying.  In understanding this, God's Word then shows us the glorious truth which makes it possible for us to pray at all.

Psalm 5 is one of David's prayers.  It is for flutes no less, as opposed to the string instruments that were called on in Psalm 4!  David is clearly in a time of hardship - he mentions 'sighing' in v1, and his 'cry for help' in v2.  In vv8-10, there is a description of his enemies.  The fact that his prayers are laid out before God 'in the morning' suggests that this Psalm may be a counterpart to Psalms 3 and 4, which testify to God's protection of David in the midst of his flight from Absalom, and especially in the dark of night as he lays down to sleep (Psalm 3:5; Psalm 4:8).  But in the midst of his troubles, David speaks clearly of his sense of expectation that God will answer him (v3).

As we think about the problems and possibilities of prayer, however, v4 is where this Psalm becomes really significant.  Three questions uncover my flow of thought ...

1. What makes prayer difficult?

Most Christians will have no difficulty testifying to the myriad issues that make prayer difficult.  

Busyness.  Distraction.  A hesitation that comes from our sense of our unworthiness.  A complete lack of structure for organising our praying.  The failure to set aside time for prayer.  Uncertainty about who to pray for.  Uncertainty about what to pray for them.  The sense of being overwhelmed by how many people and how many concerns we should pray for.  The struggle to move our prayers beyond a 'shopping list' of quite worldly concerns.  

The list goes on.  Notice, however, that most of these issues have to do with problems on our end of the prayer equation.  In other words, they are issues that we find difficult to overcome.  But they're not actually the real heart of our problem with prayer.  For that we need to ask a second question.

2. What makes prayer impossible?

This is by far a more important issue to get at, for it lifts our minds to consider the God to whom we pray, and to consider ourselves in that light.  It gets us thinking about what prayer is, ultimately, and about whether we even have the 'right' to bring our requests to God in prayer.

Psalm 4:4-6 state the problem very succinctly.

You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell.  The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.  You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the Lord abhors.

It is sometimes said that 'God hates the sin but loves the sinner'.  There's something very understandable in this statement, but actually, the sin and the sinner cannot be so easily separated.  The God who is perfectly holy hates them both.  It is not just the wrong-doing that he is against, but also the wrong-doer.

And ultimately, this is our big problem with prayer.  As rebellious sinners, in and of ourselves, we have no basis upon which we can approach God with our requests.  We are not in fellowship with him.  We are objects of his wrath, of his settled opposition to both sin and sinners.

3. What makes prayer possible?

Having identified this problem, however, in v7 David declares about himself what is the only hope for every one of us:

But I, by your great mercy, will come into your house; in reverence will I bow down toward your holy temple.

In other words, the combination of God's holiness and our sinfulness makes prayer impossible.  But God's holiness is not the only reality about God that must be considered.  Wonderfully, there is also his great mercy.  And this is what makes prayer possible, even for rebellious sinners.  This is why later in the Psalm (vv11-12), David encourages all who take refuge in God to be glad and to sing for joy; he calls on God to spread his protection over everyone who loves his name, so that they might rejoice in him; he declares that God blesses the righteous - those who take refuge in him (cf. Psalm 2:12) - and surrounds them with his favour as with a shield. 

Of course, if even David knew that his approach to God depended completely on God's great mercy, how much more should we know this, who have seen so much more of God's mercy than David did.  For we have the son of David, Jesus the Son of God, as our great high priest who has gone through the heavens.  And it is on the basis of this that we approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need ((Hebrews 4:14-16).