“Although Satan tries to block all paths to prevent them from praying, they should nonetheless break through, surely persuaded that, although not freed of all hindrances, their efforts still please God and their petitions are approved, provided they endeavor and strive toward a goal not immediately attainable.”

Calvin addresses a matter most Christians have thought or worried about. “Does God accept my prayers when I doubt, am impatient with him, or when I allow my mind to wander carelessly?” Calvin reminds us that our prayers do not require perfection in wording nor perfect faith to be heard and answered by God. What God seeks of us is an awareness and acknowledgement of his majesty.

16. Our prayers can obtain an answer only through God’s forgiveness

Calvin reminds us that the essence of prayer is intimate conversation with God.

This also is worth noting: what I have set forth on the four rules of right praying (What God Offers Us in Prayer ) is not so rigorously required that God will reject those prayers in which he finds neither perfect faith nor repentance, together with a warmth of zeal and petitions rightly conceived.

I have said that, although prayer is an intimate conversation of the pious with God, yet reverence and moderation must be kept, lest we give loose rein to miscellaneous requests, and lest we crave more than God allows; further, that we should lift up our minds to a pure and chaste veneration of him, lest God’s majesty become worthless for us.

He cites David as one forgiven for improper prayer.

No one has ever carried this out with the uprightness that was due; for, not to mention the rank and file, how many complaints of David savor of intemperance! Not that he would either deliberately expostulate with God or clamor against his judgments, but that, fainting with weakness, he finds no other solace better than to cast his own sorrows into the bosom of God. But God tolerates even our stammering and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us; as indeed without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray. But although David intended to submit completely to God’s will, and prayed with no less patience than zeal to obtain his request, yet there come forth—sometimes, rather, boil up—turbulent emotions, quite out of harmony with the first rule that we laid down.

Calvin points out that when we acknowledge that we prayed improperly God graciously forgives us.

We can especially see from the ending of the Thirty-ninth Psalm with what violent sorrow this holy man is carried away, so that he cannot control himself. “Let me alone,” he says, “before I depart, and be no more.” [Ps. 39:13] One might say that this desperate man seeks nothing except to rot in his evils, with God’s hand withdrawn. Not that he deliberately rushes into that intemperance, or, as the wicked are wont, wishes to be far from God, but he only complains that God’s wrath is unbearable. In those trials also there are often uttered petitions not sufficiently consonant with the rule of God’s Word, and in which the saints do not sufficiently weigh what is lawful and expedient. All prayers marred by these defects deserve to be repudiated; nevertheless, provided the saints bemoan their sins, chastise themselves, and immediately return to themselves, God pardons them.

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