Ordering Your Prayer
Ordering Your Prayer
Now, behold, I have ventured to speak to the Lord, although I am but dust and ashes (Genesis 18:27, NASB).
Dust and ashes.
I’m struck with Abraham’s attitude in prayer—the attitude that he had entered the treasure house of God and grasped heaven in his arms. He knew that his prayer was a way of embracing God. To think that he, Abraham, had talked with God! It was almost as though he had mounted up with wings and entered the very dwelling place of his Lord. That thought itself was enough to lay him low and cause him to say, “Lord, who am I? I’m only a little pile of dust and ashes in Your presence.”
It’s been awhile since I’ve had that feeling in my prayer times. Feeling like falling face-down before God because I’ve glimpsed heaven. My prayers are more of a neat and orderly arrangement—Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication all in a tidy row. I’m careful to follow a proper progression of praise and petition, almost as though I were moving through an outline.
But when I look at Abraham’s cry to God … a cry that had nothing to do with a mere arrangement of suitable words … when I consider his heart, his attitude, it’s clear to me that spiritually-ordered prayers consist of something far more than clustering requests in a prim, prescribed fashion.
Spiritual prayers have to do with praying to Someone who is real, with addressing ourselves to a God whom we cannot see but who is, in fact, present with us. Spiritual prayers have to do with conversing with the unseen Creator of the universe as though He were standing visibly and terribly in front of us.
When we sense the reality of God’s presence in that way, we will be deeply humbled. We will be led by the Spirit to say with Abraham, “I have ventured to speak to God, although I am but dust and ashes.” Our prayers will be something more than a mechanical arrangement of words.
How long has it been since you’ve felt the dust and ashes? If talking to God doesn’t strike you as being one of the most profound and extraordinary privileges imaginable, then perhaps Genesis 18 would be a good place to refresh your prayer life.
Only when we feel the dust and ashes can we enter the treasure house of God and embrace heaven.