Prayer Dependent

I have room to grow in prayer development. I learned a long time ago that prayer should be simple and direct not complicated and cumbersome. Some of my most effective prayers have been very brief. “Help” is a very effective prayer when I need God’s help.  I also think prayer should be both spontaneous and scheduled. I like to start my day in prayer before the busyness crowds out the important work.

Paul reminds me….
Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. (Philippians 4:5 NLT)

Jesus, even though He was the Son of God, felt the need to pray often. He is consistently slipping off by Himself to speak to His Father. After the miracle of feeding thousands of people, He needs prayer time. Check this out….

⁴⁵ Immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into the boat and head across the lake to Bethsaida, while he sent the people home. ⁴⁶ After telling everyone good-bye, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. (Mark 6:45-46 NLT)

I think prayer gives me perspective. When I tell the Lord what I’m stressed about or simply what is on my mind, He often helps me see things from His perspective. I don’t always see the other angles to a huge issue, but prayer positions my heart to see His perspective.

I think prayer welcomes the Presence of God into my life. It is easy to get busy handling things on my own until I hit a wall that is too big for me to climb or a problem that “I can’t get my head around”. Prayer welcomes the wisdom and insight of my Father to help me navigate any issue or problem I face.

Prayer is deeply personal. The Lord knows everything about me already, but prayer is where I can repent of my sin that while secret to others is acknowledgement before Him. There is nothing about me that is secret to Him.

Prayer can also bring great clarity to me. Solitude allows me the “bandwidth” to reflect on where I am and hope ushers me in the direction I want to go.

I want to be careful to NEVER underestimate the power of prayer in my everyday life. I think the Lord loves it when I pray about the simplest things. I think He loves hearing from me in prayer like I love hearing from Him in His Word.

I want to consistently lean into more spontaneous prayer. I also want to pray consistently on schedule.  I can’t pray too much, but I can get too busy to spend time in deep prayer.

Pressing On!

Dwayne