Prayer On My Mind

Many months ago, I wrote about patterns for Christian prayer, advising that the Bible is the best prayer book one could ask for.

Prayer has been more intensely on my mind again lately, and I’d like to return to that topic. 

A couple of things worry me when I talk about prayer.

One is that I may spend more time talking about prayer than I spend doing it.

I am one of the world’s least disciplined people, and I know very little about spending significant periods of time with God, just pondering who He is and adoring Him.

The second fear stems from the first—I worry lest people look to me as any kind of authoritative model of a pray-er, just because I talk about it. 

I am very much a learner.

But because prayer is important to me, I want to talk about it again and just share a couple of things I’ve learned, because I trust they will be helpful to some.

I use Psalm 5 as a morning prayer quite frequently, and I love the fact that the psalmist, after listing a bunch of things that God dislikes (in various levels of intensity from “not taking pleasure in” to “abhors”), acknowledges with great humility, “but I, by your great mercy, will come into your house.”

The writer of Hebrews states it a bit more strongly in Hebrews 4:14-16.

Because of Jesus, he says, we may “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Both of these passages deal with how we approach prayer in the first place.

The psalmist realizes that it is because of God’s mercy that he can come into God’s presence at all.

The writer of Hebrews emphatically states that it is because of Jesus that we can approach the throne of grace.

So, when I come to prayer, I acknowledge from the first moment that it is because of Jesus, the ultimate expression of God’s mercy, that I may come into the presence of God.

That same acknowledgement opens the way for you as well.

Prayer On My Mind

I can’t think of a single poem I’ve written that is about prayer, but I have written a number of poems that are prayers.

Here is one of them.

I Lean In

I lean in to You, O God

Sometimes in petition

Always in praise

You are the solidity

Undergirding every thought

Without you

There is nothing

I live my days

Aware of you

Turning to you

With the ease of breathing

Soil beneath my feet

Food in my mouth

Stir thankfulness to you,

Creator of all

And the gladness of redemption

Sin forgiven

Debts erased

At that terrible cross-cost

I lean in, O God

In awe and gratitude

Always in praise.

-Poem by Rhonda Brown

*My early poem is available in the archives of the Utmost Christian Writers poetry contest.

I have written many things about the world of poems and have published many of my own poems and stories here at Poet Monk Blogs

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