“The first law of prayer is that we must be honest in prayer. Luther said that the first law of prayer is, ‘Don’t lie to God.’ The great temptation in prayer is to become conventional, to pray in pious language for the things for which we know we ought to pray. But the truth is that at least sometimes no one would be more shocked than we would be, if our prayer was granted. We may pray for the giving up of some habit–without the slightest intention of giving it up. We may pray for some virtue or quality–without any real desire to possess it. We may pray to be made into a certain kind of person–when the last thing we in fact want is to be changed, and when we are very well content to be as we are. The peril of prayer is pious and unmeaning platitudes. The danger of prayer is that we very correctly ask for the ‘right things,’ with no desire to receive them. That is lying to God. We cannot pray for that which we do not desire with our whole hearts. If there is something which we know we ought to desire, and we do not desire it, then our first step must not be to pray for it; that would be dishonest; but to confess that the holy desire which ought to be in our hearts is not there, and to ask God by His Spirit to put it there. There should be in our prayers an astringent honesty with ourselves, so that we may be honest with God, for God sees the secrets of our hearts, and God well knows when we are conventionally asking for blessings which we have no real desire to receive.”
William Barclay, Everyday Prayers. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1959, pages 10-11.
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Prayer Note #61: The Interference of God–A Prayer
Prayer Note #59: Fleeing My Inescapable God
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