Perhaps you have never thought of prayer in any other way other than “you need, you ask and God delivers…” Whether this is how you understand prayer or not, I would really encourage you to read on, and be blessed by them and learn from someone who walked close to the Lord and who through his teaching of it, changed my own understanding of why we pray, 180 degrees…
Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.
We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life.
God’s “nothings” are His most positive answers. We have to stay on God and wait. Never try to help God to fulfill His word.
The greatest answer to prayer is that I am brought into a perfect understanding with God, and that alters my view of actual things.
We impoverish God in our minds when we say there must be answers to our prayers on the material plane; the biggest answers to our prayers are in the realm of the unseen.
Pray because you have a Father, not because it quietens you, and give Him time to answer.
You say, “But He has not answered.” He has, He is so near to you that His silence is the answer. His silence is big with terrific meaning that you cannot understand yet, but presently you will.
If God sees that my spiritual life will be furthered by giving the things for which I ask, then He will give them, but that is not the end of prayer. The end of prayer is that I come to know God Himself.
Our understanding of God is the answer to prayer; getting things from God is God’s indulgence of us. When God stops giving us things, He brings us into the place where we can begin to understand Him.
Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.
Yes.
Very early on, after Christ brought me to Himself in utter spiritual bankruptcy, I found myself beginning to pray at length and for things that I had never thought to pray before. It wasn’t very long ago that I told my pastor that in times when I have an extended period of time in which to pray, the longer it goes on, the more I can tell that the Spirit takes over, for indeed we do not know how to pray as we ought. He asked me, how so? And I told him – because it seems to go deeper and deeper into submission to Him – my cares and concerns that I brought in the beginning are washed away in the presence of God, and it turns from my own supplications and cares to a seeking to simply be more submitted to Himself, to exalt Him, to know Him more, and a deeper gratitude for His faithfulness to His covenants and to His people. In a very real sense, I decrease and He increases in times like that. There is nothing more precious. It just changes everything.
“Never try to help God fulfill His word.” Immediately I think of Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. Indeed.
Hi Barbara
Amen.
I am so blessed and filled with joy by your sharing. I praise our precious Lord for this deep working He is doing in you. I pray it will only grow stronger as you abandon yourself to Him more and more.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Bless you dear sister