Say What You Need to Say

Emma and I were watching “Behind the Actor’s’ Studio” featuring Colin Firth, and in talking about his role in The King’s Speech, he said, “As anyone who’s tried to speak another language, you’ll find if you’re limited in that language, will find that you end up saying what you can rather than what you really want to say.”

It strikes me that we often treat our prayer life—our conversations with God—as a second language that we don’t know very well. We speak what we can, but unless we learn the language, we may never say what we really want to say. We have to learn to speak and the best way to learn any language is to force yourself to speak and hear it by putting yourself in a “native” environment.

God doesn’t expect us to be “fluent” coming out of the gate (more on that tomorrow), but if prayer is just talking and listening to God we shouldn’t worry how we sound. Prayer is about deepening our relationship not just learning a language.

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.” (Rom. 8:26, The Message)