Discouragements to Prayer Removed
QUERY. What would you have a poor creature do, that cannot tell how to pray?
ANSWER. Thou canst not, thou complainest, pray; canst thou see thy misery? Hath God showed thee that thou art by nature under the curse of his law? If so, do not mistake. I know thou dost groan, and that most bitterly; I am persuaded thou canst scarcely be found doing any thing in thy calling. But prayer breaks from thy heart. Have not thy groans gone up to heaven from every corner of thy house? I know it is thus: and so also doth thine own sorrowful heart witness thy tears and thy forgetfulness of thy calling. Is not thy heart so full of desires after the things of another world, that many times thou dost even forget the things of this world? Prithee, read this scripture: Job 23: 12.
QUERY. Yea, but when I go in secret, and intend to pour out my soul before God, I can scarce say any thing at all.
ANSWER. Ah, sweet soul, it is not thy words that God so much regards, that he will not mind thee except thou comest before him with some eloquent oration. His eye is on the brokenness of thy heart; and that it is which makes the compassions of the Lord run over: “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
The stopping of thy words—may arise from overmuch trouble in thy heart. David was so troubled sometimes that he could not speak. But this may comfort all such sorrowful hearts as thine, that though thou canst not through the anguish of thy spirit speak much, yet the Holy Spirit stirs up in thy heart groans and sighs so much the more vehement.