[Request Denied]
| Prayer
is a Place in Your Heart
Prayer is more than a plea. It is a place where we must spend time if we are to learn its power. A minister had gradually lost his faith. In a world of great, suffering, he could no longer feel the presence of the Lord in his own life. He was embittered that he had spent so much of his life in studying and pursuing an understanding of God. Now he had only a sense of betrayal and emptiness. Even his prayers seemed to bounce off an invisible barrier. He expressed his anguish to an old friend he had known since his childhood. He told his friend that he thought he knew what Moses would have felt like if the burning bush had suddenly stopped burning and went up in a pale, gritty puff of smoke. He said that for him there was no more burning bush or sense of the presence of God in his life. His friend, a rancher, confided that he, too, often felt that way. "But you know, Jack, I realized a while back that the burning bush is always there, always burning. It's just that I hadn't been spending much time in that part of the pasture." Prayer is "that part of the pasture" where the bush is burning. If we are to be powerful in prayer, we must spend time there. |
God has promised to answer our prayers. Yet we need to understand the various forms an answered prayer can assume.
God's answers may sometimes be either a simple "yes" or "no." At other times, the answer may be more complex. The following are four possible ways that God may answer our prayers.
Request granted. God's word contains a multitude of promises that we will receive what we ask God for. This is especially true if we pray according to God's specific will for our lives, those things that He wants for us (1 John 5:14-15). Sometimes we pray specifically and God answers specifically. This is a marvelous experience, one that easily fosters courage and motivation for further prayer.
Request granted, but not yet. Isaiah 55:8-9 instructs us that God's thoughts and methods are "higher" than ours-as high "as the heavens are higher than the earth." Sometimes God's timetable is different from ours! God's answer to our prayers in this case is indeed yes, but we must yield to His schedule. This is an answer, and it is an affirmative answer, but we can easily miss seeing the answer, or believe that God hasn't heard us, simply because the answer hasn't arrived on time. patience and persistence in prayer are sometimes needed to ensure that we keep looking for God's answer.
Reguest granted, but look elsewhere. At Jesus' final meal with His disciples, the night of his betrayal, he began to wash their feet (John 13:1-10). Peter was quite offended and when he tried to stop our Lord, Jesus told him that his perspective was wrong (vv. 6-7). Peter was looking so hard for what he expected to see (a conquering Messiah), that he failed to see what was there (a servant Messiah). There are times in prayer when we make a request, fully convinced of what form the answer will take. If God then answers in an unexpected fashion, we may fail to see the answer. We, like Peter, have our minds so made up about what should happen, we fail to see what is actually happening. In our prayers, we need to guard from unconsciously dictating how God will answer. We must give him the liberty to be God!
Request denied. In our relationship with God, sometimes a gradual but serious shift occurs in our own minds regarding who serves whom. Christians can easily forget that God is not a magic genie who jumps at every command. God is God. He is always at liberty to say no to our requests-not capriciously or maliciously, of course, for that would be a denial of His character. But He is still Lord of all. Times will come in our lives when God will deliberately with-hold granting requests because of their ultimate effect on our lives or the lives of others. Perhaps the development of certain character qualities in our lives is more vital than the request sought. Withholding answers to prayer must always be understood as His ultimate protection, never as punishment. Our responsibility during these times of painful denial is to trust in what we know of God's love for us.
The Practice of Prayer
Without this final section, all tat has been previously said is merely lifeless information. Talking about prayer is not prayer. To pray effectively, we need to know when, with whom, how, and what to pray.
When to Pray
David prayed faithfully in the morning, evening, and often at noon (Psalm 5:3 and 55:17). Our Lord also spent times in prayer during early morning hours and late at night (Mark 1:35 and 6:46 ff.). Much can be said for "opening and closing" each day in communion with God. Often these times provide the most privacy and greatest freedom to be reflective and quiet.
Abraham's chief servant, sent his master to secure a bride for Isaac, communed with God in the midst of a busy schedule, surrounded by strangers (Genesis 24:11-14). He prayed quietly in his heart (v. 45) in the midst of his work. It is acceptable and advisable to pray throughout the day as well as in the morning and evening. We need not be in the privacy of our homes to seek the face of God. Often, the Lord will bring to mind a person or an issue at the "oddest time." We need to seize these moments and use them to offer short, specific prayers back to God. Learning to respond to the unexpected promptings of the Holy Spririt is vital to a vibrant prayer life.
It is good to have a set time of dailly prayer, but if is also important to seize the "eternal moments" that God gives throughout each day.
With Whom To Pray
Jesus exhorts us to shun praying in public in order to impress others, and encourages us to pray "in secret" (Matthew 6:5-6). Private prayer will undoubtedly occupy the largest portion of our total prayer life. During these moments of solitude we can unveil our hearts before Him who sees us as we are and yet loves us with an everlasting love. During these private hours we can intercede for the world that exists outside our private place. Here we can plead, weep, or rejoice over issues that matter little to anyone but us and God. Private prayer should be a priority.
But Jesus also speaks of praying with "two or three" (Matthew 18:19-20). The early Christians prayed together often (Acts 4:23-24; 12:12). A sweetness of fellowship and a sense of strength comes when God's people go to Him together in prayer.
God's Word holds before us models of private and corporate prayer; both are vital and should have a place in out prayer life.
How To Pray
It is more important that we pray than how we pray. Those who pray best are those who pray most. Yet, for some, a very broad format, a sort of "skeleton" model onto which personal detail can be added, is helpful.
A model for how to pray is captured in the acrostic: ACTS. Each letter stands for a specific aspect of prayer, arranged in a very natural order:
A - Adoration
....(worship)
C - Confession
....(of specific sins)
T - Thanksgiving
....(gratitude)
S - Supplication
....(specific requests)
Adoration. Worship begins and ends with who God is. Beginning our prayer time with adoration immediately places us in the position of a creature in the presence of its Creator.
Adoration is simply acknowledging to God what He has revealed about Himself. One helpful way to cultivate an attitude of adoration is to take actual phrases from Scripture and "pray them back" to God, using them as springboards of thought on who God is and what He is like. Some of the many appropriate passages for this purpose are: Job 38:1; Chronicles29:10-13; Psalm 19:1-2; Psalm 84; Psalm 95:1-7; and many other Psalms.
Not only is this the proper starting place for prayer, it is a crucial driving force in our entire Christian life. As we worship, we must be sure that the One we worship is indeed the living God.
Confession. The closer we draw to God Himself, the more we sense our own sinfulness. Again like Isaiah, a glimpse of God's glory will cause us to exclaim, "Woe to me" (Isaiah 6:5), as we realize how far we fall short of His glory.
The natural consequence of genuine adoration is sincere confession. It is reasonable that as we worship God, the awareness of our personal sin becomes greater.
Confession is the second step in prayer; agreeing with God that specific conduct and attitudes in our lives are wrong. We should name the sin and ask God to forgive us. During this period of confession, we may also ask God to make us aware of other sins in our life that we are unaware of or have neglected to deal with.
Thanksgiving. Our immediate response after confession is thankgiving. David said,
"Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven" (Psalm 32:1).
We can certainly thank God for forgiving us of the sins we have just confessed. But gratitude to God should encompass more than forgiveness. Paul told the Colossians,
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him (Colossians 3:17).
Thanksgiving causes us to acknowledge God's existence, his love, and His care. It reminds us of His goodness. In short, thanksgiving forces us to keep God in our thoughts.
We should thank God for all the blessings we can see in our lives - health, friends, guidance, and answered prayer. But we should also verbally thank Him for all that is ours that we can't see, such as our adoption as His children, our inheritance in heaven, the ministry of angels in our lives, the new body that will be ours for eternity, and the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit.
By giving thanks, which is simply expressing gratitude for what we have, we prevent our focus from shifting to what we don't have. Satan loves to distract God's children from thanksgiving, because he can accomplish much in a heart that is ungrateful. Thanksgiving is a powerful weapon against satan's tactics.
...to be continued. Thank you! :)
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