“Not to pray is to deny God-to deny His existence, His Nature, and His purposes toward mankind.” E.M. Bounds
The Lord is really working in mine and my husband’s lives right now- through us learning spiritual disciplines. Selvin is teaching spiritual disciplines to the trainees going through bush camp and as a couple we are focusing on them with practical application each week. It is a 12 week study so I wanted to share what we are learning with you so you can also be challenged to grow along with us! The first spiritual discipline we’re focusing on is prayer. Prayer is what pushes us to the frontier of the spiritual life. Of all the spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it takes us into a deep personal communion with our Father.
Oftentimes I feel like we overcomplicate prayer. I know I do-I see it almost as an insurmountable task that I just can’t seem to get past a few minutes in. I read stories about people who are prayer warriors, who have camel knees from hours spent on their knees before the Lord and down in the depths of my heart I yearn to pray like them. I realize that to become a prayer warrior such as them it will require discipline and much change on my part. William Carey, a renown missionary said “Real prayer is life creating and life changing. Prayer-secret, fervent believing prayer lies at the root of all personal godliness.”
Yet, prayer is not complicated. Effective prayer happens when you TALK to God and LISTEN to what He is saying to you. You cannot have one of these without the other-you must have both of these parts. Often we talk to God but we don’t take time to be still before Him and to wait on Him to speak. (We’ll talk more about this in our next spiritual discipline meditation.) Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline, says “To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our life. The closer we come to the heartbeat of God the more we see the need and the more we desire to conform to Christ.”
I have been saying for a long time that I want to go deeper in my prayer life-yet I haven’t made a diligent effort to. Because the truth is, if I really want to do something I’ll make the necessary changes in my life to form a new healthy habit. The Lord has deeply convicted me to just get down to the basics of prayer, enough with my excuses and to just do it. And as I just do it-little by little I hope that John MacArthur’s words come true in my life-“Prayer is like breathing for Christians. When you don’t pray, you’re holding your breath spiritually-fighting against the very existence and presence of God in your life.”
There are 3 basic characteristics of prayer.
1) Prayer is expected. Prayer was the lifestyle of Jesus. There are so many times in Scripture where it says Jesus went to a quiet place to pray (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16). In Matthew 6:5-9, Jesus is explicit about us praying-it doesn’t say IF you pray, it says WHEN you pray! It’s an expectation-to pray is the most profound and personal communication with Him. Prayer is a duty and to neglect prayer is therefore a sin. Because we are commanded to pray, it is an act of disobedience if we do not pray.
2) Prayer is learned. (Luke 11:1) The disciples asked Jesus how to pray. They took notice of the many times Jesus would go by himself and pray and they saw his prayers answered and they wanted to learn! If you are discouraged about your prayer life and how effective your prayers are, this should give you hope to know that prayer is something you learn to do. No matter how weak or strong your prayer life currently may be, it can only grow stronger as you learn how to pray more effectively. To understand that the work of prayer involves a learning process saves us from arrogantly dismissing it as false or unreal. Praying is like learning a foreign language. If you’ve ever learned a foreign language you know that you learned it when you actually spoke it. The same is true with prayer. You can gain great knowledge of prayer but you will never truly learn to pray unless you actually practice it. The great thing about this journey is that the Holy Spirit living inside of us helps us to pray better.
3) Prayer is persistent. (Luke 18: 1-8) Jesus tells a parable of the persistent widow who comes before an unrighteous judge continually until he is worn down and grants her justice to get her to stop bothering him. He uses this story to teach his disciples how they must persist in prayer. He ends it by saying “And will God not give justice to his children, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them quickly.”
Sometimes a failure to persist in prayer proves that we are not serious about our request in the first place. At other times God wants us to persist in prayer in order to strengthen our faith in Him. Faith would never grow if all our prayers were answered immediately. Persistent prayer tends to develop deeper gratitude as well. As the joy of a baby’s birth is great because of months of anticipation, so is the joy of an answer in prayer after persistent praying. Don’t allow Satan to discourage you when you don’t get an immediate prayer request answered-instead let your love for God cause you to prevail in prayer to Him who loves you-cry out to him day and night. He will answer in His time.
How to Pray:
These are some components of prayer. I’ve listed with each one practical ways to implement them. Please use this to help guide you in your prayer life, but of course don’t be confined to it. It is not a formula as there are many ways to pray. As you continue to use these components in your daily prayer life, it will become more natural and the Holy Spirit will give you the freedom in this.
- Confession: confess your sins to God, ask him to search your heart and convict you by His Holy Spirit of how you sinned, confess your helplessness before God-even to get down to your very motives of why you sinned against him that day, be quiet before him so you have a chance to listen.
- Praise: praise God for all of his wonderful attributes and characteristics, you could choose 1 or 2 specific ones (ex. faithfulness, healer) and praise Him for specific ways He has been this to you in your life as of late, sing songs to God (listen to praise and worship music, play an instrument, read Scriptures like Psalms and pause and meditate on the words). Go through the ABC’s and see how many names you can praise God with!
- Thanksgiving: thank God for the specific ways He has done great things for you-think of even the seemingly small ways we often take for granted-food to eat, healing from sicknesses, safety. These are all gifts-we don’t deserve them but He chooses to give them to us in His timing. Thank God also for the hard eucharisto-the ugly-beautiful things in your life that he is using to refine you into gold for Him, to make you more like Jesus. The injustices you see in your world and he has given you a passion to fight for-close family values, the orphans, the widows, the lost….Or the things that happen to you that are so difficult and hard-losing a loved one, troubles in your marriage, prodigal children, persecution at work….all of these hard things are opportunities for us to run to our loving Father who is THE answer to all of our difficulties, who allows trials and tribulations to come our way as a part of his perfect story. He already knows the end of HIs Story-HISTORY, we can only see a few pages or at most a couple of chapters of how our lives are intertwined in His great timeline. Even when we don’t understand this side of heaven-give thanks! Open your hands to receive the good, the bad, the ugly and trust in His love. Keep a journal-counting thankfulness, set an alarm on your watch so every hour or at certain points in the day you take a minute and express your praise, write it on post-its and put it around your house as a visual reminder. Thank Him with a heart full of gratitude. The more you intentionally thank Him, He truly will increase your joy in Him.
- Petition: Bring your requests before our loving Father. Pour out your heart like water to him-tell him about all of your worries, your concerns, your burdens. Ask for His help in each one. Pray for your needs, the needs of those closest to you-your spouse, brothers or sisters, parents, grandparents, friends. Use resources to help guide you in petitioning for these people-prayer calendars, praying scriptures.…(http://www.operationworld.org/free-prayer-enhancing-resources) The beautiful thing about prayer that I’m learning is that the way I pray seems to change according to the different seasons of life I’m in-there is not just one way to do it. There is no formula. It is a beautiful, unique communication we share with our Lord that is deep and personal….the way you do it during one season of your life may look different the next. I know I just want to be growing in the Lord, embracing the changing seasons and praying that I go deeper each time.
- Intercession: Jesus stands before the throne of God constantly interceding for us. We too have the responsibility as His followers to stand in the gap and intercede for others. Pray fervently for believers who need encouragement or conviction in certain areas of their lives. Pray feverishly for the lost, that God might turn their hearts to avoid eternal damnation. Write people’s names you are interceding for on your mirror, on notecards to stick in your book bag or purse, put notes in your calendar-surround yourself with reminders so it is a constant prompt to pray. Be creative in your intercession-pray while you go for a walk or for a run, pray aloud with your children while they’re playing outside, stick notes in their lunch boxes, text your husband or friends with verses you’ve prayed over them. The more you do it the better you’ll get at it! What a privilege to stand for others and find the power we have in learning the heart of God-of how to specifically pray for others and thus turn the heart of God in favor. “In dealing with mankind nothing is more important to God than prayer. Prayer is likewise of great importance to God. Failure to pray is failure in all of life. It is a failure of duty, service, and spiritual process. It is only by prayer that God can help people. He who does not pray, therefore robs himself of God’s help and places God where he cannot help people.” E.M. Bounds
Lord Jesus, please give me the power in Your name to learn this discipline of deep, fervent prayer. May I start small and as you grow me make me stronger in it-make me creative in it and give me joy in this journey! I do not want to sin and disobey you by not praying. I do not want to be prayerless and therefore stand in the way of your work. Forbid me from tying your divine hands and being a hindrance to your work because of my sin of not prayingI want to pray continually like you command us as your followers to do. Please help me not to rob myself of your great help by not first coming to you. Help prayer in my life to become as natural as breathing-where it is such a deeply ingrained habit that whenever a problem arises-I pray…whenever thankfulness bursts from within, I pray-praising you…..whatever happens-I pray until it is such a part of my life it is my very default setting. . Ignite such a passion in my heart to pray that it cannot be contained!
By Laurel Jeremiadoss
***If you are interested in studying the spiritual disciplines further, most of our teaching comes from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, Spiritual Disciplines by Donald Whitney and E.M. Bounds’ Weapons of Prayer.
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