Growing in grace

Any well-taught Christian will know that to grow in the knowledge and love of Christ, Bible reading and prayer are essential. But perhaps this has become something of a cliche.
For some, the problem is legalism or ritual; "So long as I've read my Bible and prayed, I'm OK with God and I must be 'going on' with him."
For others it may be intellectualism; "I've discovered the melodic line in 2 Peter and know what God said there."
And there are many other problems when it comes to Bible reading: anti-intellectualism (which at it's worst is just an excuse for self-indulgent and lazy emotionalism!), hypocrisy (the Bible always applies to someone else), and pride ("I know what it says, so I don't need to think about it again").
As for prayer, well there are different and possibly more complex problems: if our understanding of God's sovereignty and human responsibility is out of kilter, then we may become fatalistic and so stop praying, or at the other extreme, fail to believe that God answers prayer at all because we trust our own efforts too much. If God delays his answers to our prayers, then we can also begin to think that prayer is pointless. Distractions and lack of discipline also weaken our prayer life.
So what to do?
First, we need to rediscover what it means to ponder over God's word. I don't say 'meditate' because it has so many unbiblical connotations (e.g. emptying one's mind - something Christians are never encouraged to do). We often talk about 'studying the Bible', and while we should apply all our mental capacity as we read God's word, it's not academic study for its own sake. Reading God's word involves the mind, yes, but also the heart and the will. We need to ponder over our daily reading so as to allow the Spirit to engage our affections (which are deeper and more 'motivational' than mere emotions). Communication is always two way, so we need to bring God's word and our lives into contact with our life - our ambitions, our priorities, our passions, and the everyday practicalities of life. And this takes time.
This year I've been using a reading scheme to take me through the Bible in a year. No bad thing, but this morning, it meant reading 3 Psalms and 3 long chapters of Isaiah. Just reading these to gain a superficial understanding takes a good deal of time, so it's tempting to read them, tick them off, and move into prayer without really pondering what God's saying to me today. So I've decided to slow down. Some days, if the meaning is plain I'll read all 6 chapters, and still be able to ponder. But other days, a complex chapter might need more time to sort out the meaning and then allow the Holy Spirit time to apply it into my life and affections.

When it comes to prayer, I hesitate to say anything, but to quote Bunyan,

And verily, may I but speak my own experience, and from that tell you the difficulty of praying to God as I ought, it is enough to make your poor, blind, carnal men to entertain strange thoughts of me. For, as for my heart, when I go to pray, I find it so loth to go to God, and when it is with him, so loth to stay with him, that many times I am forced in my prayers, first to beg of God that he would take mine heart, and set it on himself in Christ, and when it is there, that he would keep it there.

 I found that quote in Michael Haykin's book, 'The God Who Draws Near', and Haykin goes on, 'Bunyan knew the allergic reaction of the sinful nature to the presence of God that still resides in the bosom of every believer. Instead of coming into God's radiant presence to pray, it wants to run out...' (p59).
I find that really helpful because it explains so bluntly why I find prayer so hard. And once I know the reason, I'm in a better place to deal with it. Not only that, but the guilt of praylessness is easier to confess when I know its origin, and everyone knows that guilt is one of the biggest inhibitors of prayer - guilt makes us flee from God.
So it is still absolutely true that prayer & Bible reading are essential for growth in grace. But I'm going to ponder more and, with the help of the Spirit, fight my sinful nature which, whenever I turn to prayer, points me to my emails, my to-do list, my diary or an untidy study.

Haykin points out a number of other helpful things, one of which is the importance of cultivating strong, helpful Christian friendships, and I'll leave you with this thought of Maurice Roberts, quoted on p75: 'Our best friends are those whose company most makes us afraid to sin.'