Lord Teach Me to Pray (Amy Dresser)
How important is prayer to you? Daniel came to God three times a day – even on pain of death. He loved connecting with God more than he loved his life in this world. He valued connecting with God because he knew that the whole basis of his success in serving the king depended on it. He was not a self-made man. He knew that he could do nothing of himself – like Jesus. All his wisdom and greatness came out of his intimate times with God.
I stumbled upon this quote in a book on the gospels I was reading today: “Few people in the world have owned the power that comes from spending time alone with God. God always has more to give us than what we even at our fullest capacity are able to receive. The exercise of communing with God in prayer, Scripture reading, and worship is transformative in every way, yielding miracles in us, inside and outside. It all starts with a simple decision to seek God with a sincere heart. It then becomes a regular habit until we do not want to live unless we experience holy moments every day.” (Seven Sevens in the Gospel of John, p120)
That’s how good God is. When we taste Him, we don’t want to live unless we have Him. He’s THAT MUCH BETTER than everything else.
Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer.” Then Paul says that we are His house. And so: Prayer is supposed to define the people of God – to be something that we do “without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:16)!
But when you hear the word “Prayer,” what do you think of? Most of us have grown up with a narrow understanding of prayer that makes verses like the above seem unreasonable.
The first step to God-honoring prayer is to admit that you can’t pray. All we can do, is bring what we have: our minds, our bodies, our will – and present them to God.
Maybe you go to your closet, the bathroom, the woods – it does help to “get alone with God.” It reminds us that we stand, in truth, face to face with a Living God. And that he has a personal, intimate relationship with “ME.” Or maybe you can’t get alone (though you can almost always take a “bathroom break”—even it that means locking out the children-- wink wink to all the moms). Still, you can tell the kids you need a moment and they’re not allowed to talk with you till you talk to God…. Because frankly, you will not be a nice mommy till you talk to God ;).
We need to become experts at gauging the state of our souls. And engaging our spirits with God to be strengthened, when we see ourselves losing traction with Him… losing the Fullness of the Spirit in our hearts – which is our inheritance, our RIGHT as believers, our unfathomable gift from God!
And as we present ourselves to this God who has PROMISED us HIMSELF – and says things like, “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the HOLY SPIRIT to those who ASK HIM!?”
WOW. The Holy Spirit of God is God’s Promise to us if we simply COME and ask! And it is this Spirit that is the flame within us that prays!
So we come with what we have: ourselves. And we give God what we have, no matter what it is: our sins, our fears, our praises, our devotion. Whatever it is. He wants it. He wants to cover your sins, so you can stand before Him unashamed; He’s a good God! He wants to relieve your fears, by the knowledge of His love. He wants to lead you to a place of praise – because we were all made for joy and rejoicing… and in His presence is fullness of joy. And he wants to make us a blessing, His conduit, to a lost and broken world.
All of it starts with coming.
Psalm 84
For the Pure and Shining One
A prophetic song written by the prophetic singers of Korah’s clan
Set to the melody of “For the Feast of Harvest”
84:1 God of Heaven’s Armies, you find so much beauty in your people!
They’re like lovely sanctuaries of your presence.
2 Deep within me are these lovesick longings,
desires and daydreams of living in union with you.
When I’m near you, my heart and my soul
will sing and worship with my joyful songs of you,
my true source and spring of life!
3 O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God,
even the sparrows and swallows are welcome to build a nest
among your altars to raise their young.
4 What pleasure fills those who live every day in your temple,
enjoying you as they worship in your presence!
Pause in his presence
5 How enriched are they who find their strength in the Lord;
within their hearts are the highways of holiness!
6 Even when their paths wind through the dark valley of tears,
they dig deep to find a pleasant pool where others find only pain.
He gives to them a brook of blessing
filled from the rain of an outpouring.
7 They grow stronger and stronger with every step forward,
and the God of all gods will appear before them in Zion.
8 Hear my cry, O God of Heaven’s Armies!
God of Jacob, listen to my loving prayer.
Pause in his presence
9 God, your wraparound presence is our defense.
In your kindness look upon the faces of your anointed ones.
10 For just one day of intimacy with you is better than
a thousand days elsewhere!
I’d rather stand at the threshold in front of the Gate Beautiful,
ready to go in and worship my God,
than to live my life without you
in the most beautiful palace of the wicked.
11 For the Lord God is brighter than the brilliance of a sunrise!
Wrapping himself around me like a shield,
he is so generous with his gifts of grace and glory.
Those who walk along his paths with integrity
will never lack one thing they need, for he provides it all!
12 O Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
what euphoria fills those who forever trust in you!
Song Recommendation: (The Bible says, “Be continually filled with the Spirit—singing…”)
I will offer up my life, by Matt Redman
Amy Dresser