The following is an excerpt taken from my book: "Poured Out, Spilled and Broken", you can purchase my book and all the accompanying study guide materials through my website at www.egbnow,org.
"My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up" (Psalm 5:3 KJ21).
Prayer should be a natural part of life when we are communing with our Heavenly Father on a one-on-one basis. It's also an act of worship to Him. It can be done in various settings such as group, formal, private, spontaneous, silent or spoken. The type of prayer I'd like to focus on in this devotional today is our private prayer life. This type of prayer is what we do when we're praying on our own for personal needs, or maybe concerns we have for our children, our spouse, our family members and so on.
It's during these moments of prayer that we can at times, struggle with how to pray, what to pray, or if we believe our prayers are being heard. I remember how frustrating it used to be for me when I would pray and pray for a certain issue or circumstance to change and it felt like my prayers were going about as high as the ceiling! Not fun and definitely not very encouraging to anyone ... huh?
But hang on, I have a solution! I believe that if we can excel in the quality of our prayers, we can save ourselves a lot of grief by lowering the quantity needed for each issue, or circumstance in life that we're bringing to the throne room of God. In other words, pray smart ... not repetitiously. We can wear ourselves out really fast by thinking we have to constantly be praying for something and reminding God over and over because we're afraid He's somehow forgotten what we said the last ten times we told Him in the past hour.
Be assured, God will not forget what you prayed for. The Word says He won't. I promise! The Truth is that He hears our cries for help and even as we speak them out, we are ushered directly in to His Presence for a private audience with him (Psalm 18:6). So let me take a moment to explain what mean by excelling in the quality of our prayers. The next time you pray for situation or circumstance in your life, try incorporating some of the following concepts of what i call the "5 gets" and you will see a transformation take place in the power associated with your prayers. Ready? Here we go!
- Get Alone With God- The first step is to make sure you go somewhere that you can get alone with the Lord. It doesn't matter where ... just go where there's no distractions. This is a time for some one-on-one communication between you and your Heavenly Father.
- Get Yourself In Right Standing With God- Secondly, get yourself in right standing with your Father. Examine yourself according to the way David did when he asked God to search him and know his heart; and try him in order to determine the intentions of his thoughts, to see if there were any wicked ways in him (Psalm 139:23). David discovered how to open his communication line with God so he would be heard. When you ask God to search you, then you are in essence requesting that He make you aware of the sins in your life that are potentially blocking or hindering your prayers. After He reveals these things to your heart, get them right with Him and immediately confess them and ask for forgiveness. This isn't the time to debate with Him or attempt to justify your sins! Accept the responsibility for what you've done, said, acted or thought and humbly confess, release and move on.
- Get Specific- Thirdly, you'll want to focus on what you are specifically asking God to do, as well as how you're praying for Him to intervene. What you need to move away from, is the idea of praying a blanket prayer for everything. You must be specific. When you are specific, you are pin-pointing your objective to what you are interceding for, while you have God's undivided attention.
Thanks so much and be blessed!
Tracy ;)
1 comments:
Good thoughts. We have been the recipients of many prayers recently, and it has been wonderful.
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