I don’t know about you but it always encourages me to hear the saints of old acknowledge their own difficulties in spiritual disciplines such as prayer. What a delight it should be for us to bring all our cares, burdens, joys, and petitions to the throne of grace, but, if you’re like me, you find prayer difficult.

Luther describes prayer as:

“The hardest work of all – a labor above all labors, since he who prays must wage almighty warfare against the doubt and murmuring excited by the faint-heartedness and unworthiness we feel within us…that unutterable and powerful groaning that the godly rouse themselves against despair, the struggle in which they call mightily upon their faith…

Audacious prayer, which perseveres unflinchingly and ceases not through fear, is well pleasing unto God…As a shoe maker makes a shoe, or a tailor makes a coat, so ought a Christian to pray. Prayer is the daily business of a Christian.”

I want to make prayer more of my daily business, not an activity I resort to when I have exhausted all of my other options.