“HELP ME” PRAYERS
When I was in seminary, I realized the word “help” was not used in the prayers of the New Testament. It only appeared in two indirect “prayers” when the father of a demon possessed boy cried out to Jesus, “I do believe, help my unbelief!”(Mark 9:24) and a Canaanite mother of a demon-possessed girl cried out to Jesus, “Help me!” (Matt 15:25).
I found, on the contrary, that the verbs used in all the prayers of the New Testament were amazing and revolutionary when applied to our prayer life (Refer to “The Prayers of the New Testament” on this website under the tab: Devotionals”). They all, Jesus, Paul, Peter, James, Jude, clearly called on God to simply, “Do it, Lord!” “Cause it to happen!” “Deliver!” “Open our hearts!”, “Grace-gift the answer!”, “Give, meet the need, Lord! Nowhere is there any suggesting we are to ask You to help us do anything, except maybe help our unbelief, but for us to ask You to do it all. Our responsibility is to be totally available to You to use us if You so choose or not to use us at all in answering our prayers. Let’s eliminate, once and for all, “Help me” prayers from our prayer language and adopt the verbs used by the ones whose prayers are recorded in the New Testament for our edification and instruction.