So, why do you pray?

It’s the start of another year. Most Christians make some kind of re-commitment to pray more, read the Bible more and get closer to the Lord. I have done that for decades. I love the fresh start each year brings. But I also know the emotions of feeling like it won’t matter. I have gone through seasons (years) of battling with deep questions. “What am I doing with my life?” “God, are your listening?” “Why me?” are but a few of the billions of questions I have come to the Master with.

If you missed my link to Bible Reading Plans for 2015 click here.

I have a number of reasons I keep on praying and I imagine you do to.

1.       I have needs and desires, things I want and things I want to happen.

2.       I have friends, family and people I love, so I pray. I pray for the persecuted church, people who are suffering in the world, people on the news that my heart is drawn to. I pray for people.

3.       I pray that I might know and do the will of God. I believe that if I know God’s will and do it, I will feel fulfilled, have purpose and significance.

4.       Prayers also come from my heart and lips as I sense God desires to do something. As I feel led, I pray for healing or revival, justice or divine intervention.

5.       Most of my time in prayer is about transformation of myself. I’m an introvert and find energy in turning inward to fellowship with God. In the inner place of His dwelling I find peace and hope, joy and strength. Because my inner life is so rewarding to me I constantly seek to develop it.  I try to be sensitive to spiritual greed and spiritual self-indulgence, two pitfalls, but I often fail. You can check out John of the Cross and the seven deadly spiritual sins if you want more insight on the last sentence.

6.       Lastly in this list is my call to prayer because others are not praying. I pray to help out, to help others who might not have people praying for them. This may be the neighbor’s across the street, the single mother or father, the coach or umpire.

So why do you pray, or not pray? One question we will face over and over again is the question of “what difference is prayer making?” It is hard to stick to a diet if after three weeks of vigilance you have only lost three pounds. It is hard to give yourself to prayer if after a year of two you see no visible signs that your prayers matter. Many prayer ministries now run more on the power of fellowship than on intercession. This is not a bad thing; we will turn to talking to one another when talking to God fails to encourage us. Community in the prayer room is good. But community is not the same as intercession. Worship is not the same as listening and silence in the quest for God is often seen as “nothing” or “irritating” in this generation.  Having a life of prayer is entangled in the quest to have a life that is meaningful, meaningful in a way that is visible.

I’m not here to tell you to pray more. I want to help! Help often comes with the discovery of two things. The first is the need/desire to grow. Maturity and spiritual growth is a journey with God without maps. Remember Israel and the wilderness? You don’t need maps. Through your relationship with God and waking with the Holy Spirit you journey where you do not see, you adventure out into places you never chose to go. Spiritual maturity and “not being in control” are twins. They are not the same thing while being the same thing. Just ask an identical twin to explain this to you.

So as we grow in releasing control we face the second fertile ground of maturity, learning what we do not know. One of my life motto’s is “I don’t know what I don’t know.”  When I meditate on how much I don’t know I stand at the door of seeing that I don’t even know what I don’t know. Most people’s eyes glaze over as I share my enthusiasm for not knowing what I don’t know, so I will move on.  Simply put, when you lose zeal for learning, your energy for maturity is lost. When you seek to build your life and ministry on what you know, you have lost the power to move onto the deeper treasures of what you do not yet know.

So what help do I have to offer you? How can I encourage you to move from where you are to a place you know nothing about? I don’t know. Just kidding.

You have three pathways in prayer. One pathway is inside of you, your inner man.  This first pathway is knowing yourself and understanding who God is for you and how He relates to you. The second pathway is upward, to the God who is beyond you. This is the quest for intimacy and fellowship with God. The third pathway is out into the world to do the will and work of God. By knowing “how to,” and with practice and skill development (maturity) you will be able to be constant in prayer, prayerfully doing all that you do.

So my first help is helping you see the adventure. You are not just here to change the world. You are not just here to be significant, to fulfil some destiny.  You are not here to give your life away without giving your life to God; you are not just a commodity to be consumed. So here is a starting place. This is not the only starting place, but it is one.

This book is $4.00 on Amazon
a great resource.

1.       Read old books on prayer and intercession. Pick one that you can read in less than 5 min. I share a like to those I have read, reread over the last year. Disclosure Alert. If you buy from the link I provide I might get an advertising percentage, unless the book is free, in which case I hope Amazon won’t charge me for you downloading the book.

2.       Fast media. Move away from outside stimulus and toward being content to be alone with God. This is hard, it involves removing those things we use to distract us from our inner voices, fears

and desires. Many of us find ourselves facing all kinds of evil and wicked thoughts when we remove our distractions. Lust, greed, envy, anger are but a few of the evils possibly lurking within. God speaks the truth in love and we need to do the same to ourselves. Do not suppress your demons; truthfully and lovingly deal with them. More on that later.

3.       Follow me on this blog. Just a thought. J

4.       Practice happiness.  If you can choose between being sad or happy, choose to be happy. If you find that you are not required to worry or fear – don’t. If you can delight yourself in the Lord, have joy over who God is and what He might possible do (hope) do that. Don’t fall into the trap of positivity. Go beyond human energy and learn how the joy of the Lord is your strength and positivity will look like a room filled with second hand smoke. With God’s help, give thanks, rejoice, sing, clap and laugh.

Four things you can try, three honestly. Better to try one than not try them all. Better to enjoy the little rather than never start some grand plan. Over the next few days I hope to post two additional blogs pertaining to this one. One is concerning the issue of when God’s will and our will is not the same.  In our generation nurtured on “God will give you the desires of your heart” it is often a culture shock to discover that maybe we don’t know what God meant by this. The second is a prayer guide for starting a new season. You don’t need to be entering a new season of our life to benefit from this, it is simply a tool to understand what God has done and what your part is, in His Kingdom moving forward.

Redneck Mystic Media books Links

If you can’t have a great new year, have the best one possible with the Lord at your side. If you get tired of reading prayer books you can try Jesus and Baseball, just saying.