# “Look at the promises” by Richard Sibbes

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2012/02/01/look-at-the-promises-by-richard-sibbes/
- Published: 2012-02-01T13:06:12-06:00
- Author: tollelege

“A Christian complains he cannot pray. ‘Oh, I am troubled with so many distracting
thoughts, and never more than now!’ But has He put into your heart a desire to pray?
Then He will hear the desires of His own Spirit in you.

‘We know not what we should pray for as we ought’ (nor how to do anything else as
we ought), but the Spirit helps our infirmities with ‘groanings which cannot be 
uttered’ (Rom. 8:26), which are not hid from God. ‘My groaning is not hid from thee’(
Psa. 38:9).

God can pick sense out of a confused prayer. These desires cry louder in His ears
than your sins. Sometimes a Christian has such confused thoughts that he can say
nothing but, as a child, cries ‘O Father,’ not able to express what he needs, like
Moses at the Red Sea.

These stirrings of spirit touch the heart of God and melt Him into compassion towards
us, when they come from the Spirit of adoption, and from a striving to be better.

‘Oh, but is it possible,’ thinks the misgiving heart, ‘that so holy a God should
accept such a prayer?’ Yes, He will accept that which is His own, and pardon that
which is ours. Jonah prayed in the fish’s belly (Jon. 2:1), being burdened with 
the guilt of sin, yet God heard him.

Let not, therefore infirmities discourage us. James takes away this objection (James
5:17). Some might object, ‘If I were as holy as Elijah, then my prayers might be
regarded.’ ‘But,’ says he, ‘Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are.’
He had his passions as well as we, or do we think that God heard him because he 
was without fault? Surely not.

_But look at the promises_: ‘Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver 
thee’ (Psa. 50:15). ‘Ask, and it shall be given you’ (Matt. 7:7) and other like 
these.

God accepts our prayers, though weak, because we are His own children, and they 
come from His own Spirit, because they are according to His own will, and because
they are offered in Christ’s mediation, and He takes them, and mingles them with
His own incense (Rev. 8:3).

There is never a holy sigh, never a tear we shed, which is lost. And as every grace
increases by exercise of itself, so does the grace of prayer. By prayer we learn
to pray. So, likewise, we should take heed of a spirit of discouragement in all 
other holy duties, since we have so gracious a Saviour.

Pray as we are able, hear as we are able, strive as we are able, do as we are able,
according to the measure of grace received. God in Christ will cast a gracious eye
upon that which is His own.”

–Richard Sibbes, _[The Bruised Reed](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1848718039?tag=toletaupanre-20)_(
Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1630/1998), 50-51.

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