Prayer is vital in our preparation to prophesy. Prayer and prophecy are inseparably linked in terms of the communication process. Both involve listening before talking. In my own prayer time, I usually find myself somewhere in the spiritual paradox between wonderful and frustrating, joyful and painful, confident and uncertain, anointed and unanointed. Fortunately, all those feelings are the same to God: prayer is prayer. Some days, you get in the elevator and zoom to the penthouse suite. Other days, you take the stairs. Either way, prayer is an interesting journey.
Most of us don’t listen enough before we pray. When I pray something, I listen straight away, just in case God tells me I can have what I ask for. Sometimes we pray more than we need to because we never hear God say, yes. Whenever we pray, whatever we pray, we must get into the habit of immediately listening.
Often, we listen best when we are reading. If that’s the case, we are to read the Bible before an extended, set- apart time of prayer. The Holy Spirit can and will impress on us something from scripture. Perhaps God gives us two ears and one mouth so we would listen twice as much as we talk.
Prayer, in its simplest form, is finding out what God wants to do and then asking him to do it. When we don’t listen before we pray, we end up presenting God with options instead of a request. We’ll pray whatever comes to mind instead of entering communion with him. Our internal, clamoring agenda gives God a multiple-choice prayer. Please Lord, do A. Unless B is your will. Or C. But D would be great, too, we pray. By practicing stillness, and communicating with him throughout the day, we can better hear and understand his heart for our issues.
Prayer is praying with God not to God. It is praying with the answer not to try and find one.
God is very different from us. God is always still and often silent, but he punctuates that silence with words. This makes every word God speaks in event, because he has an inherent creativity in the power of his Word. In Genesis 1: 3, he said, let there be light, and there was light for the first time. His first recorded message was an incredible event. Psalm 33: 6- by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made. Another glimpse of the creative power of God’s word is in John 1: 1 in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Human beings, on the other hand, punctuate words with silence. We’re always talking and rarely quiet. This makes our silence an event. We’re usually quiet only for the purpose of reflection, or if we’re searching something out.
The great thing about God is that he doesn’t have to talk to communicate. Just the look can be sufficient. The Bible says that Jesus turned and looked at Peter and broke his heart. God can speak to us through his love, his joy, and even his presence. We just have to take time to spend in that quiet place with him. The more disciplined we become in every moment of our lives, the more dialogue we will engage in him.
A discipline does not have to be a heavy or burdensome duty. It is a joy if we choose to see it that way. It’s describes a joyful routine that does our hearts good. Like brushing our teeth in the morning or our first sip of coffee each day.
All daily routines need to be joyful otherwise the stress of it can unbalance our approach to life. The Holy Spirit is so brilliant at playing the enjoyment game, it is what makes fellowship with him a complete delight!
Prayer can come in seasons. You can be in a season in your life where God answers many of your prayers immediately. What once took days or weeks to be prayed through suddenly took minutes. We are learning to hear God more clearly, and our expectations in terms of listening grows. Our prayers are full faith because we know God is listening and acting.
Obviously, prayer is not just about being in request mode before God. He isn’t Santa Claus. The wonderful thing about prayer is that we can talk to God about anything and everything, wherever we are, whatever we’re thinking, or whatever we’re feeling. We have the freedom to open our spirit and go places with God. We begin to specialize in short prayers: Lord, help this person, will ask during the day. Father, remember my friends out there in Africa. We keep the flow of prayer going, holding open a channel of communication between the two of us. The best way for someone to enter the secret place with God is to never leave it. By stepping back into our inner man, our spirit, and working at being peaceful and restful, we can develop deep, constant communication with him.
A life of unceasing prayer allows us to continuously talk everything through as it comes into our lives. We can mention things to God immediately and constantly. It happens conversationally; we just run the things in our heart by God, as we would a good friend. Our fears, our shortcomings, our hopes, our dreams, our concerns, and our joys can all be brought to God in unceasing prayer.
Such a lifestyle releases our soul to be at peace because we have committed to God everything that is happening in our lives. He has a stake in all of it. Our spirit, the part of us that communicates with God, influences our soul positively when we engage with God constantly. When we talk about every situation with God, things are put into an eternal context. It makes us less prone to anxiety, worry, fear, and idle speculation. Instead, we are watching for God to do something incredible in, and through us.
1 John 5: 14- now this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him.
Prayer is a matter of continually asking the Holy Spirit to break in and speak. When was the last time you asked the Lord for some encouragement? If it has been a while, try it right now. Father, I need some encouragement. Please would you do something, please would you say something.