A SCHOOLBOY once said to me, when I was speaking to him about praying for some special thing about which we had been talking: “Do write a prayer out for me about that; it is not mentioned in any of my books of prayers, and I don’t know how to word a prayer unless it is written out or printed.”
I told him of a sailor of whom I had just heard, who had been a very bad character, but whose heart God changed, and who became a true and loyal servant of the Lord Jesus. Speaking of his difficulties at the time of his conversion, the sailor said: “I tried to pray, and could only put together a few crooked sentences, but the Lord Jesus took and straightened them all out.”
My schoolboy friend seized the idea at once and said, “Anyway, I can pray the ‘crooked sentences,’ so I’ll be content to begin with them at first.” I know that boy has never repented of his resolve to use his own words in prayer. He now knows what it is, like Hannah, to “pour out his soul before the Lord,” and can say with Jonah, “My prayer came in unto Thee, into Thine holy temple.”
“The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.
ML-03/20/1960