I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the old hymns.
Today’s song is I Often Say My Prayers from 1850.
I often say my prayers,
But do I ever pray?
And do the wishes of my heart
Go with the words I say?
I may as well kneel down
And worship gods of stone,
As offer to the living God
A prayer of words alone.
For words without the heart
The Lord will never hear;
Nor will He to those lips attend
Whose prayers are not sincere.
Lord, show me what I need,
And teach me how to pray;
Nor let me ask Thee for Thy grace,
Not feeling what I say.
There’s hardly any instances of this hymn on YouTube, and there aren’t many hymns on the subject of prayer. They’re all about worship, but when I look for hymns on prayer, I see very few. But there is this one. Like many hymns, it was written as a children’s hymn, but it’s relevant for adults too.
I grew up a Roman Catholic, and we used to “say” our prayers – generally Hail Mary, though I do remember Our Father and Glory Be to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Holy Ghost changed to Holy Spirit back in the 1960s. I’m old enough to remember the change 😀.
I never really knew how to pray in my own words until I started attending evangelical churches. I remember hearing people pray in prayer meetings and wondering how long it would be before I would be expected to do it 😀. I did start doing it after a few weeks. But I always see private prayer as more significant. It’s then that I can truly focus on God rather than the people around me. I think of the following words that Jesus spoke:
Matthew 6:5-9
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
He then recited the “Our Father” or “The Lord’s Prayer”. He seems to have given this as an example of the sort of things that we could include in prayer. I wonder whether he intended us to recite it in a ritualistic way. But if we sing hymns, why not recite Scripture together? But we shouldn’t exclude speaking to God in our own words. We don’t need to worry about exactly what we say. As Jesus points out, God knows what we need. I think of people comforting you when you’re bereaved. What they say isn’t very significant. You simply appreciate their presence. And God appreciates us coming into His presence in prayer. Someone once suggested the following procedure in prayer – using the ACTS acronymn:
- ADORATION – Hymns are helpful here – whether we sing or just silently speak the words.
- CONFESSION – We might have specific sins that we want to confess to God. But of course, He knows them all already. But we might confess in more general terms – the way the Pharisee did in the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector – , ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
- SUPPLICATION – That’s the actual prayer requests.
- THANKSGIVING – There are plenty of hymns on this theme, but we can always think of things to thank God for – and we can thank Him that He hears us, and that He will answer in a way that’s best for us. He doesn’t necessarily give us what we want. But He does give is what we need.
In the Bible, Christians don’t pray to anyone other than God. Because Jesus and the Holy Spirit are God, we can pray to them, but to me, the model to follow is to pray to the Father in the name of Jesus. Where does the Holy Spirit fit in? It’s the Holy Spirit who will prompt us to prayer, guide what we say, and perhaps even tweak what we say without us knowing.
Romans 8:26
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
As with so much theology, you hear many different opinions and perspectives. But at it’s heart, prayer is simple. And we receive so much encouragement in Scripture to pray.
Anyway, as I said, I don’t see many instances of today’s hymn on YouTube. But here are a few hymns about prayer and a few based on the Lord’s Prayer. Cliff Richard’s song made number 1 at the turn of the millenium. I preferred The Masses Against the Classes by the Manic Street Preachers, but I’m still glad that Cliff made number one 😀.
