The Listening Prayer

By Our Daily Bread

Read: Psalm 86:1-12

Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth. —Psalm 86:11

How do you feel when you talk with someone who isn’t listening to you? It can happen with a friend who has his own plans for how a conversation should go. Or it can happen when the other person simply doesn’t want to hear what you have to say.

Now think about this in regard to your prayer-life. Could it be that the way we talk to God is a one-sided conversation dominated by us? Notice the observation of William Barclay in The Plain Man’s Book Of Prayers: “Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest, we wait in silence for God’s voice to us.”

We might call this “the listening prayer,” and it’s a practice we need to develop. We need to find a way to get alone with God in quiet, to speak to Him in earnest, taking time to listen to the urgings of the Spirit and the instruction of His Word. We must say, “Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth” (Psalm 86:11).

Are we talking so much that we don’t hear what God says? If so, we need to learn the art of the listening prayer.  —JDB

We need to set aside the time
To read God's Word and pray,
And listen for the Spirit's voice
To guide us in His way. —Sper

God speaks through His Word—take time to listen.