Want to find out? Write down your prayers–all of them–for an entire week. Not just the ones you pray in your regular prayer time, but also the ones you pray during the day as you go about your activities. After you’ve compiled a week’s worth, sit down and read through all your prayers. Try to forget they’re your prayers. Pretend you just came across them on a park bench. While you’re reading these prayers of a “stranger,” ask yourself what this person believes about God. Is there a lot of asking? How much time is spent in thanks? Any complaining going on? About what? Do the prayers represent a personal relationship? When done properly, this little exercise can give you an accurate snapshot of your beliefs about God.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:17, we are told to “Never stop praying.” Jesus tells a parable about a persistent window in Luke 18:1-8 which has the same message.
But how long are we to keep praying when no apparent answer to that prayer is forthcoming?
There’s a concept that Dutch Sheets talks about that we believe provides an answer to that question: prayer bowls. Revelation 5:8 speaks of bowls in heaven that contain our prayers. Dutch suggests that our prayers continue to fill those bowls until they are filled and ready to be poured out, which releases God’s power on earth.
We can’t see into the bowls, of course, so we have no idea how full any particular bowl is. Thus we’re told to pray, pray without ceasing, and just keep praying.
This is as good an explanation as we’ve seen for stories like:
* someone awakening from a coma after a full year of prayer
* someone accepting Jesus after 20 years of prayer
* Susan and I were “prayed into” our church after more than 2 years of prayer by others.
So how long do we keep praying? Until the prayer is answered or it can no longer be answered. God is often working in many lives at once and much of that work remains behind the scenes to us. Trust Him. Who knows–that next prayer you send up could be the one to tip the prayer bowl and release God’s power.
This is a new page on the web site, but it’s important enough to reproduce here.
An Hour Each Day
with the LORD
What would you do?
Thanksgiving and Praise, Confession and Listening
A respected friend and pastor has spent the past 15
years prayer journaling through the steps detailed here.
Thanksgiving and Praise
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make
your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6
We find that worship music can help usher us into His presence. With a
deliberate focus of the previous day, journal all praise and thanksgiving that comes to your mind. You may find yourself thanking our
Lord for beautifully simple things; hot showers, a song bird, the kindness of a neighbor, an opportunity to serve Him by lending a hand
to another. With a specific focus on the previous day, you will find that you begin to see God moving in details of your life that you
hadn’t previously noticed. You’ll find a deeper joy in His daily presence in your life and His complete sovereignty.
Confession
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious
thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalms 139:
23-24.
As you spend time with our Lord in daily confession–again with a focus on the
previous day–you may be surprised as He leads you to brief moments of sin related to your heart or thought life. You may find that you
had some jealous thoughts, critical thoughts, judgmental thoughts of another. While your outward behavior may have been appropriate,
your heart and mind is of great concern to our Lord. It is there that sin can be hidden and unchecked. It is there that it can grow
into something that will bring harm to another. This area of our spiritual life needs regular maintenance and care in the presence of
the perfect, Holy God. His grace for us is bottomless, His mercy unending. A sincere confession and plea for His help and
strength can turn a ship headed in the wrong direction. You may find the Lord leading you to times of unbelief, doubt or inaction in
the practice of your faith. These are beautiful moments where you can find our loving Lord guiding you, encouraging you and
strengthening you to move boldly forward with His plan for life. These are times when He will show you the truth of who you are in Him,
because of His grace, mercy and love.
Listening
Call to Me and I
will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3.
You will be blessed when you find that the quiet listening time
spent each day will bring you floods of love, encouragement and care from our Father in Heaven. Sit quietly and let the Lord speak to
you in whispers or lead you to places in the Bible where He wants to speak into your life. So many of us doubt that we hear from
God. The best way we know to develop your listening “muscle” and to become familiar with the impression of His voice is to make a
deliberate effort to hear Him daily.
Some people are led to a very structured format of this prayer and to write down everything that comes to mind.
Others are more comfortable with a looser structure without writing.
And still others move back and forth between the two, as they are led.
The only “rules” are to do it daily and to touch on all three areas: thanksgiving/praise, confession, and listening.
A minimum of an hour a day seems ideal. But go easy on yourself. Five minutes is better than not spending any time at all. Just make sure you
don’t go so easy on yourself you allow distractions to become excuses to skip “just today.”
Do this every day and your relationship with God WILL change.
And you’ll experience the fruits of that change in your life.