Blocked

I love to write!  Always have and hopefully always will.  I’ve liked writing for as long as I can remember - creative writing, persuasive writing, and my favorite of course, expository or teaching in my writing.  It’s never been an issue. I think it allows me to maybe get the millions of things in my head and put them somewhere before they drive me crazy. It is a part of my life and in a way therapeutic for me.  

Imagine my issue when the words just wouldn’t come for a few weeks.  I would sit down to write and a few sentences in, it was like I was trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics!  The things in my head I couldn’t figure out how to communicate, and when I tried, it looked like something a toddler would write telling a story about their summer vacation. Nothing made sense and I felt myself growing more desperate with every time I sat down.

I had a friend advise me to keep writing - and to write all the things I thought were silly.  So I did and I still felt silly but at least things were leaving my brain and finding their way onto something, even if none of it turned into a blog (which is what I really needed).

This writers block of sorts made me think though. There are seasons where our prayer life feels like that. We know we need to pray but when we go to the Lord it seems nothing comes out.  We want to make our thoughts make sense before speaking. We feel like it needs to be ordered as if our prayer to our Heavenly Father will be judged based on the structure of our speaking.  Sometimes, we don’t even know what our feelings are in order to know what to say to God when we pray.

We need to follow that same advice I received; keep praying. Pray all the things that seem silly to you and the Bible gives us a comfort for those times when we don’t have words for what we are feeling. Romans 8:26 shows us that the Holy Spirit will make intercession for us when we don’t know what to pray - he helps us in our weakness!! What a joy to know that we don’t have to get it right, or in order, when we pray!  The Lord wishes to hear from us -even when we have “prayers block”. The Holy Spirit takes those prayers to the Father in ways we can’t understand.   

Maybe you are in a season where the prayers are tough.

Maybe you are in a season where reading scripture seems dry or isn’t “speaking” to you how you think it ought to.

Maybe your service in the church feels different than it used to, maybe you suddenly feel inadequate for anything.

Keep praying , keep reading, keep serving and rest in the knowledge that when we are weak, God makes us strong.

“Trust in Lord with all your heart and lean not in your own understanding, in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight”

Proverbs 3:5-6