Plan to Pray

Before we get started on the method, I think we need to remember the heart of the matter. We can practice the discipline of prayer and never be conformed to the image of Jesus, which is our desire, if we merely pray for the sake of praying. We must examine what drives us to our knees. Are we coming to God because we need Him, desire Him, love Him, and fear Him? Do we pray because we pant for Him as a deer pants for streams of water? Or, are we hypocrites who pray to be heard and admired by others, as those trying to earn some sort of "in" with God? I know I am constantly examining if I have a heart for God in prayer so that my prayers are not ineffective cold mantras.

The heart matters, but having a plan or method helps in matters of the heart. Don Whitney said that sometimes our prayer life is hindered because our prayers get boring. "We pray the same old thing about the same old thing". So what method or plan does Don Whitney recommend to give our prayer life....life? What is the method that I have so benefited from? ..... Pray through Scripture! Pray God's word back to Him. He recommended starting with the Psalms. I can pray for myself, family, friends, finances, work, and church using God's Word. There are 150 Psalms and I have yet to pray through all of them. I have found my heart filled with praise and actually good words to speak it using what God inspired the psalmists to say about Him already. And I know that it is in line with the true character of God because it is God's word about Himself. I have experienced and heard from others how one line from a Psalm has inspired at times 30 minutes of prayer and there was no notice of time passing, so I have really found it helpful to start my day out looking at a Psalm and starting to pray through it. Even if I do not get to the rest of my Bible reading until later, this has been a sweet nourishment for my soul as I start my morning out reading and praying through a Psalm like this: Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your loving-kindnesses, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to Your loving-kindness remember me, for Your goodness' sake, O Lord.( Ps. 25:6-7) Bible reading, meditation, and prayer are taking place all at the same time! I love to pray through the book of Titus. Titus 2:3-5 is a favorite of mine for praying for myself and other women. Titus1 is great for praying for my elders. And who doesn't want to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously and godly in this present age?( Titus2:12) Outside of the Psalms, this is the most prayed through book in the Bible for me. This book is short, simple, to the point and jammed full of practical stuff! Can you tell I love this book? I'm a simple person, what can I say. It is very helpful and dare I say necessary to pray with the Word of God in hand. John Piper said: "In the Bible, God speaks to us, and in prayer, we speak to him. And the two are interdependent in their effectiveness. The Scripture teaches us to pray and shows us what to pray and how to pray and tells us the basis for prayer and fills us with encouragement that God hears our prayers. And prayer applies the Scriptures to ourselves and others. It turns the word into prayer, and it pleads for help from God in understanding the meaning of the word and living the word. So prayer and the word are interdependent in the way they help us be conformed to the image of Christ." I believe this wholeheartedly!

I would add that I find it very helpful to journal at the same time. The best suggestion I have in order to keep the discipline of journaling consistent is to keep your journal with your Bible and write in conjunction with your Bible reading and prayer time. If you use your computer for journaling, keep your Bible by the computer. Frankly, many of the things that show up in my blogs are from my journals.

If you have read any of these blogs on prayer you have simply been given a glimpse of the meditations of my heart. You have come along with me as I have struggled through why I do not pray as I ought. I have found writing out these things absolutely necessary for my heart and mind to process these things. So, for me, reading, meditation, prayer and journaling are all very intricately connected. What I read, write, and think about set the tone of how I react and pray throughout the day, as I teach my children, fold the laundry, sweep my floors, talk on the phone and write my emails.

Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. (2 Thess.5:16-18)

The Heart of Prayer - Expectation

In humility do I really expect/believe that God will act. Am I praying and eagerly anticipating God to do what He says He will do? Do I see God as big? As good? As the life giver/changer? Can I say with the Psalmist: For I hope in You , O LORD; You will answer, O LORD my God.( Psalm 38:15)

Often I do not live a life of persistent prayer, because I don't expect God to hear me and answer me when I pray; or I pray with the wrong motives. ( James 4:3 ) Which that brings me right back to pride. I do not think God answers me unless things go my own way according to my own plan. See the focus? It is on me, rather than on God. A heart filled with expectation is looking for God to act in a way that will fully demonstrate His precious glory. A heart of expectation will be looking for God to act in such way as to reveal a little more of His character to me and those around me, as well as reveal a little more of my complete dependence upon Him.

I need to see myself as a child coming before a loving, faithful and extravagantly generous father. Matthew 7:7-11 says: Ask and it will be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and the door shall be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, how will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! A person filled with faith or as I have been saying it, expectation, will pray, pray, pray, because they believe God is good, he hears, and He answers. We come to God empty handed humbly and joyfully expecting to be filled.

One way I find help in cultivating a heart of expectation, is to journal. I know it is not directly commanded in the Bible to journal, but if you think about the way we have benefited from the lives of saints from the past, you will see we have learned of how God was moving and working in them, through them, and all around them, through their journals. For me, when I journal as I am reading my Bible and praying, my thoughts and applications of what God is teaching me is reiterated or made clearer to me. I am also able to look back and see how God has answered prayers I have prayed and how he answered the many requests that I have written down. So, when I am discouraged and feel like God is not listening and my faith begins to falter, I can look back and see how He has heard and answered in the past. For me this cultivates an anticipation of what God might do in the future, and it keeps me persistent.

I have 4 siblings that are not in Christ. In my feeble, proud, and small faithed mind, there are times I do not think that praying for their salvation will do anything. Then I look at how God has worked and moved in those around me and even in my family and recognize that I am benefiting from being in communion with God, and how He is constantly reminding me that it is He who saves and Him alone, so what else can I do?

Even now I look back on things I had written when Si was in the hospital and how God moved His saints to pray even when most people did not know that my little boy was getting surgery at the very moment in the middle of the night that they were moved to pray for him. James 5:16 says: Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. When I start to forget this, I look back and go, wait a minute girl, get a grip, of course prayer is effective, because God says so, and you have seen it!

So, I am going to keep eagerly anticipating God to work through the prayers of His people. I am going to choose to believe that God delights to hear His children cry out to Him. He calls us to a life of prayer, so we need to get busy falling on our knees and expecting great things. I don't know about you, but I want to see God do things that boggle my mind, I want to see Him do abundantly beyond all I can ask or think.

Pray and expect to be wowed! Pray and expect to be able to say with the Psalmist: How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust, and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which you have done, and Your thoughts toward us, there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. ( Psalm 40:4-5 )