THE FOCUS OF PRAYER

I am not the only one who has had this experience. I was praying through a prayer list today and something distracted me. I continued to go down the list without my full attention. I regularly pray through a number of prayer lists. I have a list of movie people. I have a list of authors I ask God to work through. I pray for lost people God has brought into my life. I pray daily for a list of missionaries around the world. And it can be difficult to pray through these lists without distraction. I had gone some ways down the list today before I realized I was not focusing on my prayer.

Of course sometimes when I am distracted I need to pray about what is distracting me, changing the subject of the conversation, if you will. And I need to focus my mind on that until I pick back up where I was on the list. I also pray daily through several extended passages of scripture that I have memorized. I regularly find myself going through these without my mind fully focused on a passage. Prayer demands focus. You must focus on God and on the concerns you are lifting up to Him. I find I need to regularly stop and bring my prayers back into focus. I also regularly ask God to help me focus on what I am praying about.

THE NEED FOR TENSION IN PRAYER

Your prayer life needs the tension of spiritual attack. Have you ever been hunting with a bow? Have you ever shot an arrow from a bow? Most of us have at one time or another. Of course before you can shoot an arrow you must stretch the string on the bow. And as you draw the bow to shoot, the tension on the string multiplies. So it is with your prayer life. Before the power of your prayers is unleashed in the purpose of God, He must increase the tension of spiritual attack in Your life.

The Bible is clear that the reasons for spiritual attack are beyond our level of understanding. Job was never told as much about the purpose of the attack on his life as readers are told in the first chapter of the book. In the same vein Ephesians 3:10 says God intends for His manifold wisdom to be demonstrated through us to rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms. But however cosmic the reasons for spiritual war, you are also part of God’s purpose for these things. James 2 and Romans 5 declare that trials develop patience, character and hope.

We can rejoice in the spiritual attack being lashed upon us in these days. It causes us to cry out to God. And His mighty power will be unleashed in our prayers.                                                                                 

PRAYING FOR GREAT THINGS

If we pray in faith, we will find ourselves praying for great things. I have cancer. I don't know how long I have to pray or witness or write. And I don't want to spend whatever time God gives me praying for a better parking place at The Old Country Buffet.

In Hebrews 13 we find people who were commended for faith by praying for eternal things. Are you praying for things that will matter a thousand years from now? Are you praying for things that will matter for all eternity? Are you praying like Abraham for a city whose designer and builder is God? (Hebrews 11:10) Are you praying for things may take all of history to accomplish? Are you praying such mighty prayers that you may still be praying in faith when you die, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar? (Hebrews 11:13)

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FOLLOW GOD'S LEAD

If prayer were a dance, we would let God lead. Prayer is a relationship with God. We respond in obedience to God’s lead in prayer. He guides our prayers. He develops our prayer life.

Have ever you determined to rise early in the morning to pray like Jesus did in Mark 1:35? Many of us have done that. Be sure, that desire comes from the Holy Spirit within you. God is leading. And most of us have had this experience as well. God obviously woke you, but you lay there and went back to sleep? When you respond in obedience, your prayer life grows. But what do we do when we have flubbed it? Our enemy frantically works to make you give up and give in to our weakness and sin.

Keep asking God to help you, to change your attitudes, to give you a hunger for Him, to help you discipline yourself to grow in prayer. If you are growing in prayer you are probably in the habit of asking God to help in nearly every facet of your prayer life. Keep asking for Him to help you follow His lead.