In Need of Prayer

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (New King James Version)

How convinced are believers of the necessity, privilege, and power of prayer? How convinced am I? There is a reason God starts this verse with the word IF. He does not presume to think that all believers will make prayer a prerequisite or priority in their lives. It is the one aspect of the Christian life that gets talked about much more than it is actually practiced….at least for me that has been the case. While I talk with God throughout the day, I have to admit most of my intercession for others is hit or miss at best. The urgency to pray over decisions and situations is lacking. While I would tell you that prayer is important, I don’t pray as if it is. I don’t often pray believing that it makes a difference. How God wants that to change!

I remember years when opening God’s Word was not done with passion or expectancy. That changed and so can my prayer life. This is not being said out of guilt but rather out of an awakening that is being brought about by God and His desire to see prayer become my life blood. My life line!

God has crossed my path with individuals who know the importance and power of prayer. They don’t just say prayer works, they know prayer works. Their example is being used of God to make me want what they have. I can tell He is getting ready to bring about changes for me in this area. He wants me to experience prayer as it was meant to be experienced. To bring every need, every question, every request, every circumstance, every person to Him. To ask, to seek, to find! What He says in today’s verse is meant not only for a nation but it is meant for my life as well.

How easy it is to rely on the prayers of others more than on praying myself. The disciples were moved to ask Jesus to teach them to pray and He did. He not only gave them a pattern for prayer, He patterned prayer for them. His life was lived out of constant communication with His Father and He wants mine to be as well. The face of prayer is changing for me this morning. I can tell it is God who is wooing me in this direction. He has a whole new world that He is anxious to open up to me and He definitely has my attention.

Father, teach me how to pray. I confess to how little I know of it but I look to You to change that. Amen.


When I Call on Jesus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwMw16eocuU