Let's Keep Praying by Daniel Williams

Can you believe that 2016 is more than halfway done already? It is crazy how quickly time flies. Since the start of this year, Jesus has done so many amazing things in our church and community, and God has answered so many of our prayers. As a church, we have been so blessed to see Him do so many wonderful things this year already, and I want us to remember that it all started with us praying…

We started this year doing a series on Prayer at our Sunday services and learning together about what God has to say about prayer. (Listen HERE) Our church family joined together in our 30for30 challenge to spend 30 minutes in prayer for 30 days. This was a tremendous time of growth and unity for us as a church body. It was also at this time that we began to fast and pray every first Wednesday of the month. And God worked in our hearts and prayers were answered!

But as time goes on, it becomes easy to forget and lose passion. We tend to forget that the blessing we are experiencing now are because of the spiritual discipline we applied earlier. And I don’t want that to happen. I want us to finish our year in a season of prayer! I want us to continue to pray and encourage all of us to keep going to God in prayer. 

I am sharing a few ideas for you to consider as you seek Jesus through prayer. In order to keep our prayer life from growing stale, it can be helpful to keep things fresh by praying in new spaces and ways. This is, of course, not a comprehensive list, but I am hoping that you can implement a few of these to reignite your prayer life right now. Let’s remember to practice this important spiritual discipline of prayer as we finish out 2016 together!

Pray Out Loud

Remembering that we are talking to a real person in prayer is important. So, I sometimes pray out loud to make sure I understand I am talking with a person. Speaking my words out loud also allows me to hear the thoughts of my heart which can be helpful. 

Pray With A Plan

Schedule times to pray in your calendar so it doesn’t get forgotten! This is one part of planning to pray. Another way to do this is to pray for things strategically. Make certain categories to cover in your prayer time. Create a prayer journal where you can write down specific prayer requests and ideas that you want to cover. This also can be encouraging when you see your prayers answered over time. 

Pray With A Pen & Paper

Often times, I get side tracked with ideas that pop in my mind as I pray, so having a pen and paper by my side can help me from being distracted. As the idea comes I can write it down quickly and continue to pray.

Pray While You Walk

I am all for kneeling while praying, but I don’t think it is the only way to pray. I find it helpful to pray while walking so my mind and body are active and I don’t fall asleep while talking to God. 

Pray With Scripture

Scripture points me to Jesus, gives me great truth about God and softens my heart towards God. Reading and praying through Scripture can give us inspiration and direction, and it also allows us to align our prayers with God’s will.

Pray & Fast

Take extra time to pray. We all seem to be busy, so a great way to make some extra time to pray is skipping a meal. Use this time that you would be eating to fast and come before God in prayer.

Pray In Tongues

God gives a supernatural gift to some of us to be able to pray to Him in a different language. We are able to ask God for this gift, and if He decides to impart this to us we can cry out to Him in a very special way. If you have this gift, don’t neglect it!

Pray With A Pure Heart

So many times we allow our sin to get in the way of praying to God. The Bible tells us that we are able to repent and ask God for forgiveness. Repenting and having this pure heart before the Lord helps us to commune with Him. 

Pray Where You Are Inspired

Being in certain environments that inspire you can really help you. Whether that be in nature, in a really cool space, or a special corner of your house where you won’t be distracted. For example, I love the ocean and it is very help for me to pray at the beach because it makes me more aware of God’s power and might. 

Pray With Praise

Having worship music playing on in the background can create a great atmosphere and can even help you sing to God during your prayer times!

The Perseverance of Prayer by Travis Sinks

We’ve all prayed those prayers that feel as if they’re hitting the ceiling. Prayers we’ve prayed for days, weeks, months, years, and with no answer. Thankfully, we have a greater hope than immediately answered prayer. Jesus has not only promised to hear every prayer, but to be constantly doing what’s best on our behalf.

So, what are we to do in times of “silence?"

Pray.
Pray.
And pray some more.

We see in God’s Word that He sometimes answers prayers with ‘yes’, other times with ‘no’, but still other times with ‘maybe/not yet’. We see plenty of ‘yes’ answers, and even a few ‘no’ answers, where we either find that something we’re praying for is against God’s Word or sometimes we just know that God has told us to stop (as He did to Paul as described in 2nd Corinthians 12:8).

Beyond the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers is the troubling answer of ‘maybe/not yet’. Most often, this answer just feels like God is silent. It’s when we have this answer that we need to persevere in our praying.

Jesus gave us a parable in Luke 18:1-8 where He tells us of a widow who went before an unrighteous judge. This judge wasn’t going to give her justice, but she continued to come before him. Day after day she would come, and it says that he feared she would exhaust him by her persistence. So he gave her justice.

Jesus ended the parable reminding us that if an unrighteous judge could be swayed, how much more would our Father in heaven desire to give justice to those who persist in prayer. He then left us with this question: “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

Jesus’ question should be sobering to us. He is telling us to persevere and not give up, then turns the question on us: will we?

I pray that we will, but let us be encouraged by Jesus’ parable, as it speaks volumes as to the wonderful situation we find ourselves in.

Rather than comparing us to the widow, and God to the unjust judge, Jesus is using their story to show how much better our situation is.

The widow’s situation compared to ours

The story is of a widow who has no public standing, and therefore, no hope before an unrighteous judge. She has no bribe to give, or power to sway the judge. Yet she realizes that she can wear Him down.

We, on the other hand, have as our judge One Who is fully righteous and yet fully loving. By His grace, He pays our debt Himself so that we will not be condemned before Him (since He is perfectly just). Our current standing before Him, by His grace, is one of a child to a Father. What a great position to be in when asking for justice to be done!

Why persevere?

Jesus told us to persevere in the verses leading into the parable. But why should we? If we have a perfectly just and godly Father as our judge, shouldn’t we only have to ask once? Even if, in God’s timing, it was to be fulfilled later, why should we keep asking?

I have 4 reasons for you.

We’re forgetful

The fact is that if we prayed once and left it alone, we’d forget by the time it was answered and we would not be blessed knowing that He heard us, nor would He get the glory for answering our prayer.

We’ll appreciate it more

We tend to appreciate things we anticipate. I love how Donald Whitney puts it:

"Persistent prayer tends to develop deeper gratitude as well. As the joy of a baby’s birth is greater because of the months of anticipation, so is the joy of an answer to prayer after persistent praying.” -Donald Whitney

God wants participants

God does have a plan, but He also wants us to be involved along the way. This is seen perfectly in the fact that Jesus prayed often. By Jesus praying, He was revealing God’s desire to answer prayers (as we’re told that Jesus reveals the Father’s nature), and Jesus was also demonstrating our role to go before God the Father in prayer.

It builds our faith

The last and most important of the reasons is that God has ordained not-yet-answered prayer to be a way to build our faith. Again, Donald Whitney says it really well:

"Sometimes a failure to persist in prayer proves that we were 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 prayers were answered immediately.” -Donald Whitney

Another way to think about it is:

"As we ask, and while we wait, we learn to depend on God.” -Bruce Zachary

We gain nothing but the answered prayer when the answer is immediate. But when we have to wait and labor in prayer, we gain newfound trust, and faith, in God’s working, more than we could have in any other way.

So let us seek God in our not-yet-answered prayers. Let us persevere that we may not only gain our prayer answered, but that we may also draw even nearer to the God we’re praying to, and into deeper relationship with Him and faith in Him.

The Intimacy of Prayer by Alesha Sinks

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

"God is the most important.”

And I’m stuck by how often I forget this. It becomes about the praying, the reading, the serving, the giving… It so quickly becomes about the stuff and the doing instead of the One we are giving to and doing for.

It reminds me of early on in our marriage when we were having an at-home date night. I spent all afternoon cooking a fancy meal and setting the table just right. I wanted the perfect fancy home date for my husband, but by the time we sat down to eat, I was stressed and tired. There was a still a kitchen full of dishes to take care of, and I didn't enjoy our date night or my husband.

I had made it about the stuff, about the doing for my husband instead of about my husband himself. From that time on, I've carefully considered how I spend my day before we go on a date or spend time together. I want to enjoy my husband and be enjoyable to him and connect with him personally, not waste all my energy on doing things for him.

And it’s the same in my walk with God. There are days I find myself drowning in the do more, try harder life, and when I look deep, I realize that I'm not enjoying God. In those moments, I wonder how to find release. How do I keep serving and giving and loving and reading and praying, but change the why?

Because the doing is good…so good and so important. But without the right motives, the right why, it’s meaningless in the end.

So I wonder, how do I change my why?

And I’m quickly reminded that all of this stuff and activity is about a relationship...a personal, intimate relationship with God.

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

When I’m finding myself overwhelmed with doing for God and failing to connect with God, prayer is the first place I turn. Because usually, somewhere along the line, I’ve turned prayer into a box to check instead of a conversation with the One who loves me.

It’s a beautiful thing to realize afresh that I can pour out every thought and worry and question and joy and agony of my heart to God. He wants to hear every little thing hanging heavy on my heart and mind.

I can come to him in tears, in joys, in worries, in pain, in fear, in truth, in sin, in expectation, in suffering, in questioning, in anger…

He has born the sins of the world, so surely He can bear the weight of our worries and our fears.

But as I come to Him in truth and honesty, as I pour out my heart to Him, I need to listen to what He would say to me in return. When I do, I will find Him calming me, restoring me, loving me, and forgiving me. Though I might not feel His hand immediately, I am strengthened with the knowledge the He hears and He cares and He is good.

It is in talking with God through prayer that I find intimacy with Him renewed and restored and my faith in His care and goodness restored.

And I find myself returning again to this truth...

“God is the most important part of the Gospel. And that is why prayer is so awesome. We get to access God, Himself.”
Pastor Daniel Williams

Thoughts On Prayer (pt2) by Daniel Williams

As I have read and studied the topic of prayer, I have come across so many wonderful insights into the topic by many men and women of God. These have helped me better understand prayer itself, the importance of praying, and how to pray. I hope you find them to be helpful for you as well. I am also including a link to a very valuable book on prayer that I read recently called, “Prayer” by Pastor Bruce Zachary. You can download the book for free, and I highly recommend it. I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by some of these thoughts and insights on prayer.

PRAYER & POWER

"If you are strangers to prayer you are strangers to power." - Billy Sunday

“Most of the great movements of God can be traced to a small group of people He called together to begin praying.” - Donald Whitney

“Little prayer, little power. Much prayer, much power.” - Rick Warren

PRAYER & TIME

“I’m too busy not to pray.” - Martin Luther

“That four hours of work for which one hour of prayer prepares, is far better than five hours of work without prayer.” - George Mueller

“I feel it is far better to begin with God - to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another.” - Robert Murray Mc Cheyne

“Praying, true praying, costs an outlay of serious attention and of time, which flesh and blood do not relish.” - E.M. Bounds

“Mastering the art of prayer, like any other art, will take time, and the amount of time we allocate to it will be the true measure of our conception of its importance. We contrive to find time for that which we deem most important.” - J. Oswald Sanders

PRAYER & METHODS

“The church’s organization, methods, marketing, and machinery are powerless to deliver apart from prayer.” - Bruce Zachary

“We are constantly straining to devise new methods, new plans, new organizations to advance the Gospel. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer.” - E.M. Bounds

PRAYER & FASTING

“Prayer links us to heaven and fasting separates us from earth.” - C.H. Spurgeon

"Fasting is typically associated with abstaining from food. Nevertheless, we can appropriate God’s power by drawing close to Him by abstaining from certain material pleasures. For example, you can say “no” to television so that you can say “yes” to God. By spending time praying and reading the Bible rather than watching television, we are in effect fasting." - Bruce Zachary

PRAYER & SATAN

“God’s child can conquer everything by prayer. Is it any wonder that Satan does his utmost to snatch that weapon from the Christian or to hinder his use of it.” - Andrew Murray

“Satan the hinderer may build a barrier about us, but He can never roof us in so that we cannot look up.” - J. Hudson Taylor

PRAYER & SUBMISSION

“Our motive in prayer should be for us to desire to do things God’s way, not to get God to do things our way.” - Bruce Zachary

Thoughts On Prayer (pt1) by Daniel Williams

As I have read and studied the topic of prayer, I have come across so many wonderful insights into the topic by many men and women of God. These have helped me better understand prayer itself, the importance of praying, and how to pray. I hope you find them to be helpful for you as well. I am also including a link to a very valuable book on prayer that I read recently called, “Prayer” by Pastor Bruce Zachary. You can download the book for free, and I highly recommend it. I pray that you are encouraged and inspired by some of these thoughts and insights on prayer.

PRAYER & IMPORTANCE

“Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” - E.M. Bounds

“As it is the business of tailors to make clothes and of cobblers to mend shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.” - Martin Luther

“Prayer is the vital breath of Christians. Not the thing that makes us alive, but the evidence we are alive.” - Oswald Chambers

PRAYER & PLANNING

“Unless I’m badly mistaken, one of the main reasons so many of God’s children don’t have a significant prayer life is not so much that we don’t want to, but we don’t plan to. If you want to take a four-week vacation, you don’t just get up one summer morning and say, “Hey, let’s go today!” You won’t have anything ready. You won’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. But that is how many of us treat prayer. We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing’s ever ready. We don’t know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure, And we all know that the opposite of planning is not a wonderful flow of deep, spontaneous experiences of prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don’t plan a vacation you will probably stay home and watch tv. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer you must plan to see it.” - John Piper

PRAYER & GODILNESS

“The neglect of prayer is a grand hindrance to holiness.” - John Wesley

"Prayer is a means for spiritual acorns to become mighty spiritual oak trees." -Bruce Zachary

“Through prayer, our hearts are aligned with God’s heart so that we gain spiritual insight.”  - Bruce Zachary

“Prayer - secret, fervent, believing prayer - lies at the root of all personal godliness.” - William Carey

“What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference, in 19 cases out of 20, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little, and those who are eminently holy prayer much?” - JC Ryle

“This much we do know---Jesus prayed. Luke tells us ‘But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’ (Luke 5:16). If Jesus needed to pray, how much more do we need to pray? Prayer is expected because we need it. We will not be like Jesus without it.” - Donald Whitney

PRAYER & GOD’S WORD

“The more familiar we are with God’s Word, the clearer His will is to us. The clearer His will is to us, the more confident we become that He will respond to our prayers.” - Bruce Zachary

“The great lack of our faith is that we do not know God.” - Andrew Murray

PRAYER & ACTION

"We learn most about prayer by praying." - Bruce Zachary

“Reading a book about prayer, listening to lectures and talking about it is very good, but it won’t teach you to pray. You get nothing without exercise, without practice. I might listen for a year to a professor of music plating the most beautiful music, but that won’t teach me to play an instrument.” - Andrew Murray

“Reading about prayer instead of praying will simply not do. But reading about prayer in addition to praying can be a valuable way to learn.” - Donald Whitney

PRAYER & PERSEVERANCE

“If the ships of prayer do not come home speedily, it is because they are more heavily freighted with blessings. - C.H. Spurgeon

“It is comforting to know that God is never late. However, He is rarely early. As we ask, and while we wait, we learn to depend on God.” - Bruce Zachary

“The great fault of the children of God is, they do not continue in prayer; they do not go on praying; they do not persevere. If they desire anything for God’s glory, they should pray until they get it.” - George Muller

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