We begin life with the human instinct to connect to our Creator. Children, whether they’ve been raised in a Christian home or not, reach out to God in their thinking. And it continues throughout our lives. Even a professing non-believer might say, “O please, please, please let me find my wallet” as they’re desperately searching around. Who are they talking to?

For many people, the prayer journey ends there. Others are introduced to prayer at church, in popular culture or through family. It registers and they pay attention – they go beyond the instinct. That’s the second group. The third group are actual believers. They may sincerely pray to God through Christ. Taking another step forward, they may pray out loud, a huge step.

I was in that third group for many years; I scripted all of my public prayers. Finally, I took the bold step to pray extemporaneously – the fancy word for prayer that is unscripted and unprepared. It’s step four. It was a significant mark in my journey. And it felt great. But then I stopped the journey. I set up camp in the school of prayer in which you thought about each word, but they were still my words.

Little did I know that a fifth step lay head. A couple of years ago, I started feeling that my public prayers were a little empty. All head, no heart. And then one day, while reading through the Bible I came across that wonderful verse from Romans 8:26, “And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us.” Wow. I’d read that verse 100 times before but it finally clicked. It was as if the hands of God had reached down and gave me a shake. That was it. I was praying with my head and not my heart.

So my journey resumed. I was drawn to Dunamis Project, the intensive training in the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Anyone who has ever taken part in Dunamis knows that this is something missing in many of our churches. Submission to the Holy Spirit is where powerful prayer starts.

There is plenty of scriptural inspiration as we seek to become prayer warriors. But one stands out. “The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16b)

Earnest? We pray from the bottom of our hearts. It’s pure and motivated by altruistic submission to God’s will. It seeks God’s will. It’s not about us. Can you picture that? Do we pray that way? Most of the time? Then there’s righteous. Do we trust and obey? Do we have enough faith to live in obedience to God’s holy commands? Most of us try to live by the Golden Rule. Are we virtuous and upright? Most of the time?

The sobering truth is that as earnest and righteous as we think we are, our prayers aren’t going to be powerful and we aren’t going to get wonderful results because something very important is lacking. Too many of us look at that one sentence without putting it in context. Look back one sentence: “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” (James 5:16a)

There’s an element in the Presbyterian Church which downplays the presence of sin and the power of sin in our lives because to do so is a downer. So we often ignore the power of sin and how it prevents God’s hands from working.

It is vitally important to identify sin, call it out, and pray the blood of Jesus, which takes away the sins of the world. In the same way that we recognize the power of the Holy Spirit, we also need to recognize the power of the enemy, the demonic strongholds that are found throughout our secular culture – and which creep into the church. It’s an illness.

There’s a line in the old hymn, “There is a balm in Gilead” — “to heal the sin-sick soul.” It is to the balm of Gilead that we must turn before we pray. He is the only one who can take away our sins. It’s why we pray in the name of Jesus, who lived with no sin, but who was made to be like sin in order to pay for our transgressions.

Because we are human, we possess a certain amount of pride. We are quick to point to the sin in others and not so fast to shine the light in our own dark places.

This need to come clean is found throughout Scripture and witnessed powerfully in Psalm 19:12-13. “How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.”

Notice the word “hidden”. Each one of us harbours some sin that we don’t actually think is sin. There are things that I do which I think are okay and in God’s will but aren’t. So, part of repentance is asking God to show us those dark places in our lives which we might not be aware of.

Sin controls us. When we call it out, we take much of its power away.

Easy enough, right?

But wait. Read James’ words again.

“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”

Each other! It is easier – much easier – to confess our sins to God than it is to confess them to each other, face to face. And so in true human weakness, we fail to do that. I pray for forgiveness daily in prayer, sometimes several times, depending on the day. But when was the last time when we pulled someone aside and confessed? It doesn’t have to be a crime or an egregious moral failure. It can be something minor. But minor things left unchecked become significant things, which left unchecked can lead to serious transgression.

Confession of sin – before God and each other – is essential if we are to achieve any sort of freedom from sin’s control. The need to confess and be free from the control of sin is essential if we are to call ourselves righteous in any way and pray earnestly.

The challenge to each other and to The Presbyterian Church in Canada is as straightforward as a three-step program.

First, we confess to God and to each other and seek forgiveness. Second, we search. We humbly ask whether we have been deceived and are harbouring sin.

Only then can we present our honest prayers for God’s will to be done and we can seek and allow the power of Christ’s Spirit to pray for us, to provide the words. Humbly let go of our own expectations and open our minds to what God can do. This is powerful, Spirit-led prayer. It is achievable if we prepare, if we focus, if we submit. It takes work. It is a journey. And it’s one that never ends.