How can I talk to you, God? It seems a simple enough question, but I have to tell you, Lord: there is a lot going on that makes it hard for me.

I'm living at a time when there's this suspicion and unbelief hanging over everything like a cold, gray mist. Some people say that our prayers just drift off into space, unheard. Others run in circles searching for some glimpse of you. They believe in everything, they believe in nothing, they will not trust your Son. Mostly, I'd say, Lord, we're all just turning back in on ourselves, to focus on the great god "me."

Maybe all that stuff out there wouldn't bother me so much, if it weren't for the way suspicion and unbelief creep into my soul, too, making your Spirit's voice sound muffled and distant. It grieves me to know how cold my own heart can become to your Word.

Besides this, there's the matter of time. There just doesn't seem to be enough of it. At least, that's what the Liar wants me to believe. My days are so full of all the things I must do, I have little time to spare for prayer to you. My head is so full of all my own dreams and schemes that your words and promises find themselves nearly squeezed out. See what I mean about turning back in on myself?

And then there's sin, Lord. I consider your Word, and how you say you hold all our secret sins in the light of your presence. You leave me no place to hide. I may fool others, taking refuge behind a thousand masks. But I can't pretend with you. And I think, "Why should you listen to me? I'm not what I ought to be and have not done what I ought to do."

What makes it even worse is that, after all these years of knowing you, I seem to be getting no better. I hear myself asking you for help on so many of the same things, over and over again. I know that it's not for any lack of love or readiness to help on your part. But it seems as if every time your Spirit gives me a measure of control over one defect, the power of sin within me immediately produces two more to take its place. I find I was born with a nature incredibly creative in its ability to figure out new ways of doing wrong.

It may not be sins of youth still haunting me, but by sad experience I've learned that sin is at its worst when it's on its best behavior. It puts on a Sunday-dress suit of "being spiritual," and it takes me a while to figure out that it's just pride in disguise again. Funny, isn't it, Lord? I know I never fool you; I probably don't even fool others. But I sure fool myself. Over and over again. It all gets so sickening, so wearisome to me. So wearisome I often feel like giving up. If I'd been you, I'd have given up on me long ago.

How can I talk to you, Lord? Teach me to pray . . . again. Give me the heart, and the words, and the way to pray.