August 15

Sincere prayer

“The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles” (Psa. 34:17).
“In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul” (Psa. 138:3).

For real business at the Mercy Seat give me a homemade prayer, a prayer that comes out of the depths of my heart, not because I invented it, but because God the Holy Ghost put it there and gave it such a living force that I could not help letting it out.Though your words are broken and your sentences disconnected, if your desires are earnest, if they are like coals of juniper, burning with vehement flame, God will not mind how they find expression.

If you have no words, perhaps you will pray better without them than with them. There are prayers that break the backs of words; they are too heavy for any human language to carry.
—C. H. Spurgeon.

I often say my prayers;
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my heart
Go with the words I say?

I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God
A prayer of words alone,

For words without the heart
The Lord will never hear;
Nor will He to those lips attend
Whose prayers are not sincere.
—John Burton.

God hears the heart without words, but He never hears the words without a heart.

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