Paul Miller, author of one of the best books on prayer I’ve read, spoke at the Desiring God Pastors Conference this week and observed that we are prayerless because we don’t feel helpless without God. Our self-dependence keeps us from child-like dependence on our heavenly Father.
He said this:
How do you begin to develop a life of prayer? The feeling of helplessness is necessary. Feeling that you are completely unable to do life on your own, to do life without Jesus. God needs to be active in all of the details of your life. I think that is a big reason why Jesus tells us to be like little children. Here are some passage regarding this call: Mark 10:13-16, Mark 9:33-37, Matthew 7:7-11, Luke 10:21, Matthew 21:14-17, John 5:19, Matthew 6:9-13, and Mark 14:36.
The gift of the Spirit is to bring the “Abba, Father” cry into our hearts. Jesus is the most helpless human in history; he was completely unable to do anything on his own. He was profoundly enmeshed with the Father and dependent upon him like a child. To enter into a praying life is to enter into this heart of Jesus.
What does it mean to come like a child in your prayer time? You get out of bed and start praying. It is not long until your mind begins to wander to the problems that you have. You think there is something wrong with you, and there is! You need Jesus. Being a child in prayer means to just come. Children are not tied up in all the details when they come to their parents. They just come.
Jesus says those are weary and heavy laden are to come to him. He doesn’t call the organized and fixed up but the broken. Why do we forget that when it comes to prayer? The dirty, muddy you is the real you. Don’t try to put on the spiritual façade in prayer. You can talk to God about whatever is on your heart, so just come as you are. Be weak and open in prayer before God. It is the same as the gospel. I’m just applying the gospel to your prayer life. We need to learn helplessness. That is what a child reflects.
Now, asking like a child. Think of what a child asks for. They ask all the time; they ask for the silliest things; they ask all the time. In asking God for things in prayer, there are two dangers: asking selfishly and not asking. The first is functional paganism and the other is functional deism. It is easy to fall into not asking because we don’t want to be helpless.