“Come to Me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised to David.” (Isaiah 55:3 NLT)
While the context is a little different, the principle is the same as when Jesus declared in Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” The invitation is the same, as is the needed response: come as you are! The beauty of the Lord’s invitation is that He doesn’t require us to clean up our life THEN come to Him. We do the coming, He does the cleaning!
When leading someone in a “sinner’s prayer,” I rarely, if ever, give them the words to pray. It’s almost like asking someone’s fiancée to marry them, it’s just not appropriate. What I do is make suggestions that help them form their own ideas so they can express to the Lord what is meaningful to them. One way of expressing that is “praying what you’ve got.”
The good news is, no matter how badly we think we mess up in expressing what’s on our heart, the Lord understands perfectly what we mean. We can trust Him to know our thoughts, not simply our words. When I first came to the Lord I had no “thee and thou” vocabulary, I simply spoke with Jesus as my new best friend and trusted Him to direct my steps and lead my life.
In a prayer meeting one evening the Pastor asked those of us in attendance how we were doing. There was a young woman in attendance for the first time. She didn’t know the “protocol,” so she simply responded, “It’s been a really shitty week.” She got a lot of “amens!” We may have expressed it differently, but that’s what many of us were feeling.
And please don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting we use profanity in our conversations with the Lord, but for a new believer who is struggling to not only clean up their life, but their language, the Lord understands and will hear us if our heart is truly in tune with Him. Do you think for a minute Peter, Andrew, James, and John, all seasoned fishermen, never used profane language?
Praying what we’ve got must include authentic and genuine need, expressed in the best way we know to express it. I’ve rarely used swear words, even before I was saved, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t struggled to give expression to my needs before the Lord. Sometimes I have to confess: “Lord, You alone know my heart, please help me to find the words I need to express to You what I want to say.”
Sometimes that includes words of affirmation, praise and worship, but at other times it includes having my heart and soul in such knots I simply have no words to express how I’m feeling. It’s not unusual for my wife to ask me: “How are you feeling?” To which I must confess: “I don’t know how to express it to you.”
She thinks it’s a cop out, but I’m content to know the Lord understands. 1 Corinthians 14 comes to mind where Paul is explaining the different roles the Spirit plays in our speaking and in our praying. Sometimes words are inadequate to give expression to what we’re feeling or even thinking. Sometimes I have to go to the Lord and confess: “Father, my words are failing to give expression to what I’m feeling and experiencing in this moment. Please search my heart, know my thoughts, and accept my praise and worship!” He will and He does!
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 