Christian Practical Atheism

Truly prayer is at odds with one's natural impulses. And indeed, to the watching world, prayer is perhaps the most ridiculed of Christian doctrines. Though curiously in the unbeliever's distress, prayer to the unknown gods formulate without hesitation. For unsurprisingly, desperation remains a great schoolmaster on prayer. And we've all heard, of course, the politician with no regard for Christ on Sunday resort on Monday to the old cliche "our thoughts and prayers are with them". So of interest here is the Christian and prayer, and the test of whether we are merely practical atheists when it comes to intercession.

What I mean is this, that though your faith is wholly in Christ, when it comes to living out that faith, your prayer life feels non-existent. You are not alone. And in a very real sense, none prays as they ought. Though it is also true that in sorry cases of prayerlessness altogether, the believer has grown woefully ignorant. Ignorant of how utterly incompetent they are of living the Christian life without drawing on the sustaining mercies of Christ. Moreover, we then so foolishly presume God is pleased with our weapons fashioned from grit, willpower and hard work. But what is determination when ones wields a butter knife to carve granite? No, these attributes, though admirable, will not suffice to wage the battles of the day. You must go to God in secret. Consider the words of Leonard Ravenhill, who said, "Again and again God asks men to do not what they can, but what they can't. To prove that no sleight of hand does it." In the way of saying, we must be a people whose default is that of prayer. Lest we be self-sufficient and of no use to God.

But how important is prayer? Well, does it strike you that the only subject the disciples are recorded asking for special instruction on is prayer? They said, "Lord teach us to pray." (Luke 11:1). They might have asked, 'Lord teach us to preach,' but instead, it was the apparently unassuming matter of prayer. No better teacher on prayer was there than Christ. For earlier in Luke's account, he notes with an economy of words, "But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray." (Luke 5:16). So, in all the pressures and demands upon Jesus' time, His consistent habit at any given moment was to seclude Himself away in secret prayer. Are we in any less need of prayer than was the saviour?

The popular 19th-century preacher Charles Spurgeon knew about prayer. When asked by a man on the secret of his preaching success, Spurgeon led him to the room situated beneath the pulpit. There he showed him believers gathered to make intercession, each longing that God would bless the preaching of the Word. Spurgeon knew where his power lay. Not within himself, but in the ministry of prayer and of the Holy Spirit's enablement.

Though lest we think a formidable prayer life shall emerge overnight. This ministry is, at times, a stuttering one. For seldom will you find adequate words to express your soul's aching and your spirits hunger. But there is for the one whose faith is in Christ access nonetheless to the throne room of grace where Christ Himself intercedes for you, so might you meet Him in that place often.

Flee then, the practical atheism of prayerlessness.