Battling to Pray

My response and quotes from “Enjoying Your Prayer Life” by Michael Reeves:

I’ve heard this story of Martin Luther’s prayer life and when I’ve heard it, it has crushed me in the past because that’s not me.

Here’s the “story”

Apparently he was asked one evening what he’d be doing the next day and he replied, “Work, work from early till late. In fact I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Perhaps a quote from Luther that reveals a man like us who struggled as we do:

He wrote this to his friend Philipp Melanchon, “You extol me so much…Your high opinion of me shames and tortures me, since—unfortunately—I sit here like a fool and hardened in leisure, pray little, do not sigh for the church of God…In short I should be ardent in spirit, but I am ardent in flesh, in lust, laziness, leisure, and sleepiness…Already eight days have passed in which I have written nothing, in I have not prayed or studied; this is partly because of temptations of the flesh, partly because I am tortured by other burdens.”

Be careful not to tell the story of your life only on the good days but also the hard days. The edited version doesn’t help your fellow brothers and sisters persevere!