“I have come to learn certain things about private prayer. You cannot pray to order. You can get on your knees to order; but how to pray? I have found nothing more important than to learn how to get oneself into that frame and condition in which one can pray. You have to learn how to start yourself off, and it is just here that this knowledge of yourself is so important. What I have generally found is that to read something which can be characterized in general as devotional is of great value…something with a true element of worship in it…Start by reading something that will warm your spirit…When one finds…it is difficult to pray, do not struggle in prayer for the time being, but read something will warm and stimulate you, and you will find that it will put you into a condition in which you will be able to pray more freely.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 170.
Ever have that experience, of finding it difficult to pray? Lloyd-Jones says he has read books on prayer, but so many treat prayer so mechanically, making it all seem so simple. Prayer cannot be treated in a book, he says, because of the very nature of prayer. The important thing is to learn how to pray for oneself, how to start off well, how to get in the right spirit, a spirit of worship, and from there to pray well, easily and from the heart.
anton
Oct 26 2005
03:41 pm
“I have come to learn certain things about private prayer. You cannot pray to order. You can get on your knees to order; but how to pray? I have found nothing more important than to learn how to get oneself into that frame and condition in which one can pray. You have to learn how to start yourself off, and it is just here that this knowledge of yourself is so important. What I have generally found is that to read something which can be characterized in general as devotional is of great value…something with a true element of worship in it…Start by reading something that will warm your spirit…When one finds…it is difficult to pray, do not struggle in prayer for the time being, but read something will warm and stimulate you, and you will find that it will put you into a condition in which you will be able to pray more freely.”
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preaching and Preachers, 170.
Ever have that experience, of finding it difficult to pray? Lloyd-Jones says he has read books on prayer, but so many treat prayer so mechanically, making it all seem so simple. Prayer cannot be treated in a book, he says, because of the very nature of prayer. The important thing is to learn how to pray for oneself, how to start off well, how to get in the right spirit, a spirit of worship, and from there to pray well, easily and from the heart.