Many years ago, I read C. S. Lewis’s work on prayer: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. This unique book takes a look at the role of prayer in our lives and how it impacts our faith. One thing that stood out to me then and continues to shape my prayers to this day, is Lewis’s teaching that we ought to be honest with the Lord when we come to him in prayer.
At first glance, we might think that goes without saying. Of course, we are to be honest with the Lord. Why would anyone want to be dishonest when praying to the God of the universe? When it comes to honesty, I mean less about whether we are speaking truth or a lie, but more about being honest with who we are and what is in our hearts.
It’s tempting to want to put ourselves together when we come before the Lord in prayer, rather than come to him exactly as we are: tears streaming in grief, heart pounding in fear, shoulders drooped in exhaustion. Yet Lewis wrote, “we want to know not how we should pray if we were perfect but how we should pray being as we are now.” Where are we right now? What is happening in our life in this moment? What is weighing down our heart? What temptations are we battling? What is the state of our faith? These are the things we bring with us when we pray. We come to the Lord in vulnerability. In weakness. In brokenness. In need of grace. Lewis wrote: “We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.”
That’s what the psalmist does. He comes to the Lord exactly as he is. “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O LORD—how long?” (Ps. 6:2-3). The psalmist is not ashamed to express the true depths of his struggles. He describes his pain with vivid descriptions. He asks God all those questions our own hearts ask: Why? How long? When? He cries out to God expecting that he hears and that he will respond.
The Puritan preacher, John Bunyan, describes honest prayer this way: “Sincerity opens its heart to God and tells him the case plainly. True prayer feels, sighs, groans, and bubbles out of the heart as some heavy burden lies upon it or some sweet sense of mercy received is appreciated. O the heat, strength, life, vigour and affection that is in true prayer.”
God already knows the content of our hearts. As the psalmist wrote, “before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether” (Ps. 139:4). He knows all the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. So there’s no need to pretend with God. We can be honest about the depths of our sin, sorrow, and suffering.
In my own prayer life, I often begin my prayers with something like “I come before you today with…” I then immediately voice the troubling thoughts I’ve had, or the painful emotions I feel, or the difficult circumstances I am going through—those things that are pressing on my heart that I need to get out in the open. Because until I express them to the Lord, my mind will not focus on other aspects of prayer. This level of honesty requires that I be honest with myself first. I have to be honest with the fact that I don’t have it all together. That I am needy. That I am dependent. That I need God’s rescuing grace. To the degree that I am honest with myself, the more I am honest with the Lord.
Bunyan wrote that “Prayer opens the heart of God and fills the empty soul. By prayer the Christian can open his heart to God as to a friend, and obtain fresh testimony of God’s friendship to him.” Do you know this kind of honest prayer?
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