…Before your head hits the pillow…

Pray Until You Pray

Tonight I am going to admit a weakness. I don’t pray like I should. Yes, I do pray. I pray on my way to work when someone comes to my mind. I pray in the middle of the night when I wake up and it becomes evident that I need to pray for someone. But I don’t have a steady prayer life like I should. I don’t always keep my appointment with God. I am confident that some of you will be able to say the same thing about yourselves.

This issue has been laying heavy on my soul. My mom was what I would call a prayer warrior. I remember as a child coming downstairs for that second drink of water to see her kneeling at her bedside. I am confident that it was her fervent and consistent prayer life that brought members of her family through many difficult times. Now that she is gone, I feel more compelled to pick up that mantle. I want to pray like my mom prayed. I want to pray like Jesus prayed. I want to REALLY pray!

I teach theology on Thursday evenings and part of this week’s lesson is on prayer. As I have been listening to the podcasts I have become increasingly convicted about my own prayer life. In one of the podcasts the teacher said something I found very interesting. He said that we were to pray until we prayed.

At first I found that rather strange but as it was explained it began to really motivate me. Garneybridge.wordpress.com says this about praying until you pray. “It does not simply mean that persistence should mark much or our praying – though admittedly that is a point the Scriptures repeatedly make. What they meant [the puritans] is that Christians should pray long enough and honestly enough, at a single session, to get past the feeling of formalism and unreality that attends not a little praying. We are especially prone to such feelings when we pray for only a few minutes, rushing to be done with a mere duty. If we ‘pray until we pray,’ eventually we come to delight in God’s presence, to rest in His love, to cherish His will. Such advice is not to become an excuse for new legalism: there are startling examples of short rapid prayers in the Bible (e.g., Nehemiah 2:4). But in the Western world we urgently need this advice, for many of us our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.”

God wants us to pray because it expresses our trust in Him, it brings us into deeper fellowship with Him, and it involves us in activities that have eternal importance. And we all know what the Bible says about prayer, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” James 4:2.

But we need to make sure that we are not like those nasty boys who just ring the door bell and run away. God accepts our quick prayers from our cars and he hears our petitions in the middle of the night, but what He wants is GREAT fellowship with us. He wants to talk to us and He wants not only for us to talk to Him but He wants us to listen to Him. We cannot do that if we utter just a few words and then disappear into our busy lives.

Revelation 3:20 says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” In the time of Christ, dining with someone was intimate. When you sat and ate with someone, it was an experience. God wants an experience with us. He want us to take the time to really know him. That can’t be done in the amount of time many of us spend with Him.

So this is my November 2015 resolution. I resolve to spend more time with God. I resolve to do more listening. I resolve to bring Him more praise and worship. I resolve to bring more of my needs to Him rather than trying to do things on my own. I resolve to pray until I pray and I hope that many of you will join me on this journey!