Throughout Christian history, across various traditions and eras, a common refrain emerges regarding what we might call the shape of true prayer. Various traditions––mystics, pietists, Dutch theologians, Luther, Church fathers––all attempt to describe a particular attribute of prayer that is difficult to describe. Admittedly, this attribute of prayer is a bit intangible; but think of it as the difference between AI slop paintings and an authentic Rembrandt. However, it seems to be a key feature of prayer.
To borrow Tozer’s wonderful phrase, that feature is “praying until you pray.” An admittedly strange phrase. Specifically in private prayer, which we are explicitly commanded to do in secret, there is great blessing found, but only for those who wrestle for it.
Now, we should take care to not swerve like a careless driver into oncoming traffic, and end up creating a notion that offering up simple a prayer of thanks to the Lord at the start of your day is somehow inadequate or is less “important” to our Father. There is blessing in that prayer, but there seems to be a greater blessing found in what the mystics and revivalists described as “praying through.” Luther described praying until your fists are clenched in fervor. One mystic describe a “cloud of unknowing” which the saint must press through by prayer.
Wilhelmus á Brakel remarked on the fact that when we begin to pray we are discouraged by feelings of listlessness and darkness. This discouraging disposition is often due to our own laziness, a just rebuke. But á Brakel also gives encouragement to persevere in private prayers: “One is not willing to wrestle, but at the very outset wishes to have that prayer which God generally does not give until the end. They desire to be carried at once rather than walk themselves. Scripture says, ‘Seek and ye shall find,’ but not ‘find and ye shall seek.’”
None of this should cast a cloud of guilt over you. You should offer up prayers to God continually (1 Th. 5:17). But we should not be so easily satisfied. Scripture repeatedly invites us to be more persistent than we often are in our prayers. Our Lord, with a twinkle in His eye, invites us to wrestle with Him, and He’s left us obvious hints that great blessing awaits those who wrestle with Him. The Lord invites: “Seek ye my face”. Prayer is responding, by faith, to that invitation with: “My heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek (Ps. 27:8).”
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