Prayer

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. (Jeremiah 29:12)

Isn’t it interesting to read in The Bible, the prayers of some well known characters?  Here are just a few examples:

• Many of David’s Psalms are in-fact prayers
• Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah
• Isaac prays on behalf of his wife Rebecca for a child 
• Jacob prays in distress before his reunion with Esau
• Moses prays for mercy on the people after they build and worship the Golden Calf
• Hannah, who is barren, prays for a child 
• Stephen prayed as he was being martyred

I suspect that some of you wish that you could pray like these people! Others of you may feel your prayers are weak and powerless in comparison to these. Well, it’s interesting to note that these people all have a number of things in common. Ruth Bell Graham in her book ‘Ask in Prayer’ reminds us that they ‘never read a book on prayer, never attended a seminar on prayer, and never heard a sermon on prayer. They just prayed'. Yes, that’s right, ‘They just prayed’.  

It’s possible that the devil has tried to prevent you from praying by telling you that you don’t know how to pray, or that God will never listen to your prayers. Or maybe you pray for a few days and get discouraged because you think you’re prayers are no good and you’re not getting answers.

In his commentary in The Bible in a Year, Nicky Gumble gives us a this advice ‘Start praying where you are, as you are, about whatever concerns you, about what is lying most heavily on your heart, about whatever is irritating or frustrating you at present.’

Do that every day. Do it when you feel like it. Do it when you don’t feel like it. Just do it!

Watchman Nee wrote,

Our prayers lay the track down which God’s power can come. Like a mighty locomotive, his power is irresistible, but it cannot reach us without rails.

​One last thing, keep a pen and paper beside you and write down what you have prayed about. You’ll be amazed at how, like Abraham, Moses, David and Hannah, God marvellously, and in encouraging ways, answers your prayers also.

​Pauline Anderson