We Don't Know How to Pray

 About 30 years ago when I was working in a mission organisation; I remember being asked to talk to a group about intercessory prayer. I was pretty proud that I had been asked. I spent days searching the Bible for everything about prayer and wrote a long essay, incorporating information about the Hebrew and Greek, different biblical situations - I can't remember much now - and I'm sure that those who were subjected to the 3 hour lecture can remember nothing but how theoretical, lifeless and boring it was. Afterwards when I asked how it had come across, the person who had asked me to speak was too nice to tell me the truth. It was an indication of how knowledge puffs up, and how little I really prayed.

Although I have seen God answering prayer,  I've mostly experienced how God doesn't answer - at least, not in the way I think He will.

Recently I read something - a fictional account of how believers prayed in a certain situation. The author wrote as if demonstrating how 'people who know their God and do exploits,' should pray. The characters were experienced, passionate, committed believers. The way the story was written implied that this is how everyone should pray. I'm not necessarily knocking this, but my experience has been the opposite.

Very often, I come face to face with the reality that I don't know how or what to pray. A few nights ago the temperature was too hot to make sleeping easy, and I lay awake, thinking ... Thinking about my children, various different situations, people in my life ... I felt as if I ought to know how to pray, but I didn't.

Practically speaking, how can I possibly know how to pray? I am earthly, weak, limited, clueless.
 
So I sat in the dark, at the end of the bed, and prayed silently in tongues. Nothing. I heard nothing. I had no clue how to pray. For a moment I felt bad about it, but then the scripture came to my mind, 'for we do not know how to pray as we ought,' (Romans 8:27). I thought - 'Well! And here are so many of us, myself included, who think we know how to pray, when we don't. Then we're in good company. Paul didn't know how to pray either.'
I just had these few words. So I hung on to them, and continued to pray in tongues for about 30 minutes.

After a while,  something began to lift ... I began to see who Jesus is again, saw that He is able to save and cleanse and deliver. Everything is based on His work. His blood covers me. He is my righteousness. Praise started to well up, and I was simply able, without lots of words, to bring all the people and situations to Him and leave them with Him, sure that He knew better than I did what to do. Peace and quiet returned.

The only prayer which is effective is that which comes via the Holy Spirit, from Jesus, because He is the Son of the Father, at the right hand of the Father,  who only does what the Father tells Him; the High Priest, who knows how to make intercession for us. This is no theological theory - it's practical reality.