Do you ever feel like your prayers are too flawed to do any good? Sure, God hears us when we cry out to him, but what about prayers that are stained with sin?
For those who struggle to persevere in hope as you pray, which is surely every Christian at one time or another, Puritan pastor Thomas Watson offers encouragement based on Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17. Watson reminds us not to fixate on the imperfection of our prayers, but instead to take comfort in Christ’s intercession for us:
“Christ’s prayer takes away the sins of our prayers. As a child, says Ambrose, that is willing to present his father with a posy, goes into the garden, and there gathers some flowers and some weeds together, but coming to his mother, she picks out the weeds and binds the flowers, and so it is presented to the father: thus when we have put up our prayers, Christ comes, and picks away the weeds, the sin of our prayer, and presents nothing but flowers to His father, which are a sweet-smelling savour.” (1)
Take heart, Christian. You may feel weak and unworthy in prayer, but Jesus is praying for you. And his prayers are always accepted.
— (1) Thomas Watson, All Things for Good, 23.
