Prayer of the 'I don't know what else to pray" Christian

Read Luke 18:9-14

Luke 18:13
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

There were many occasions in my life when I felt that I don’t know how else and what else to pray. Sometimes my struggle seems so long-hauled that I feel like a runner who has run out of breath. What do I say to God that I have not already mentioned? I think the tax-collector felt pretty much what I did on those occasions.

God accepted the one-line prayer of the tax-collector but rejected the Pharisee’s prayer. Jesus gave one reason for God’s decision – humility. The tax-collector knew that His salvation depends solely and fully upon God’s mercy. There was nothing in him that merited for him to be saved.

Elisabeth Elliot talks about this attitude of dependence on God in her book, "Keep a Quiet Heart”,

“Christians in the Orthodox Church use a prayer called the Jesus Prayer. Sometimes they pray in the rhythm of breathing, learning in this way almost to ‘pray without ceasing.’ The words are simple, but they cover everything we need to ask for ourselves and others: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us.”

The Very Reverend Kenneth R. Waldron, a priest of both the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and of the Anglican Church, wrote to me of his having had surgery. “The last moment of consciousness before the anaesthetic took over, I heard my surgeon repeating in a whisper: GOSPODI POMILUY, GOSPODI POMILUY, GOSPODI POMILUY [Dr. Waldron put the Russian words into phonetic spelling] – Lord, have mercy on us. … It is wonderful to drift off into unconsciousness hearing these words on the lips of the man whose hand s you trust to bring you out of your troubles. It is great to have a surgeon who knows how to pray at such a time. Think of the comfort and help that this simple prayer has brought to thousands through the years, a prayer that was a big help tome in January 1982. Some of my hospital friends thought they would not see me alive again, but the good Lord had a bit more work for this old priest to do.”

The Jesus prayer was one of my husband Add and I often used together when he was dying of cancer, when we seemed to have “used up” all the other prayers. I recommend it to you.”