Faithful Even When

You could fairly object that praying when you do not believe the words is just putting on a show, and that it would be more honest to stop.

Lord, that is where we are. Last night's prayer came out flat. We said the words, but we did not believe them, and finishing felt only a little less awful than stopping in the middle.

Paul calls this passage "a faithful saying," a saying the churches already knew and trusted, and it has four lines: "For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself." The fourth line does not cancel the third. They stand side by side, and they are about different things. The third is about turning your back on Christ for good. The fourth is about a person whose faith has worn thin. Paul does not blur them together, and neither should we.

The reason the fourth line gives is simple: "he cannot deny himself." His faithfulness is not a mood He happens to be in and might come out of. It is who He is. So it does not check how we are doing before it holds.

So we are asking You to be who You are, at a time when we cannot manage to be who we are supposed to be. We are not going to pretend the belief is there this morning. We are going to say the words anyway, and let You be the One who holds them. Amen.

Then, still unsettled, do this. Pray the flat prayer again tonight, and put the doubt into it by name, in the words you would use with a friend. Do not wait for a better version of yourself to show up first. This passage does not ask you to hold yourself up. It promises that "he abideth faithful," and He will.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 115 is At the Door (Revelation 3:20).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna