The Adventure of Prayer 

"Happy is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at the posts of my doors". Proverbs 8:34

Someone told us an interesting story about the power of inspiration. They came home from a long day at work and their wife ran into the house flopped onto the sofa and exclaimed “I’m so tired I can’t move!” Suddenly an advert appeared on the television for a sale at her favourite store. She leapt off the sofa “I’ll just get my keys.” It’s amazing how many get that flop on the sofa feeling when it comes to prayer. Not because they don’t love God but because prayer seems like hard work.

Worship your way out of weariness

Derek Prince the late great Bible teacher once said if you only have ten minutes to pray spend eight minutes worshipping. Praise definitely changes not only the atmosphere but it also changes us. We all have times when we come into a meeting or to our time with God feeling weary and not very spiritually upbeat but when we worship a refreshing and energizing comes. When we begin our prayer times in worship we are praying the Lord’s prayer, “Hallowed be your name” and for “For Yours is the kingdom the power and the glory”.

Praying as a child of the King

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:16. There’s a lovely story about the son of one of the presidents of the US walking through security and passed all the advisors and going up and sitting on his father’s lap. We have access to the most powerful being in heaven and on earth. We are to pray boldly out our position as children of the King of the Universe. This means we are to respect Him and accept that He is able to do anything. It also means that He loves us with the love of a perfect Father so we can come to Him expecting Him to not only listen to us but to act on our behalf with our very best interests at heart.

Prophetic Prayer

I will never forget the first time I was encouraged to pray prophetically. We were about to go on a mission to Uzbekistan so after worship we sat and waited on God to see what He wanted to show us. Suddenly I got a picture of an ancient wall and a tower and we sensed that what went on in there was strategic. When we arrived we were taken to the centre of town and the most important building was a tower surrounded by a wall. We knew God had sent us and we prayed the things God had shown us beforehand about that place. That was an adventure in prayer!

Arrows of Declaration

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:7-8 It’s important to allow God to reveal things about what we are praying for so that we can then pray prayers of declaration of His will and His word rather than just praying out and “babbling like pagans”! Praying into situations is so exciting when we have insight from the One who sees and knows all things.

May we all have wonderful, exciting adventures in prayer and see real breakthroughs in our lives,

With our love and prayers,
Pastors Phil & Caroline.