Rhythms of Grace – Weekly Devotional

Pray in Faith 

James 5:17 “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.”

Prayer is the language of the believing, yet most believers struggle to pray. Again and again in my life, I’m brought to the place where I have to confess: I’m not that great at praying. I typically do it when I’m desperate. While we claim to believe God, our actions reveal that the reason we don’t pray is that we don’t really believe. See, prayer is the language of the believing.

In James 5 we are reminded of Elijah, a man exactly like us in character and in tendencies, but who prayed and saw God move in massive ways. Most of us never see God do the kind of impossible miracles that He did when Elijah prayed. The difference between Elijah and us is that he actually believed God. He believed that God answers prayers. He believed that God hears us when we pray. He believed that God moves when we ask Him to. Yet Elijah had a nature just like ours. He got tired and sometimes depressed. He got scared and sometimes frustrated, just like us but over and over again, Elijah prayed.

Blessings