Hello, sweet friend! Welcome to my very first blog post! I am not one to ‘put myself out there,’ but when you feel the Holy Spirit leading you to do something, you should follow His leading! I hope that you will find this post encouraging.
I am praying that reading this will bring you to pray more! Our Heavenly Father would LOVE to hear from you…ALL THE TIME!
If you are like me, you may be comfortable with praying. You may have even set aside time to pray. Yay! That’s wonderful! Maybe you haven’t been praying as much as you should be. You are not alone!
Have you stopped to think about WHY we pray? Sometimes prayer becomes routine (and it should!). What it shouldn’t be is rote, repetitive, ‘boring’. Why? Because we are praying to Almighty God, the Creator of our universe!
To keep prayer from becoming those things to us, we should really think about why we should pray.
“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?” – Corrie Ten Boom
Do you pray only during times of emergency? Lord, please help me get this job that I really need! God, please heal my friend who might die from cancer!
Here are some thoughts on why we should pray.
God commands prayer
Sweet friend, did you know that God COMMANDED us to pray?! To be completely honest with you, I had no idea that God commanded prayer. I did not know that when God said “Call unto me”, He was commanding Jeremiah to pray to Him.
Here are a few more Bible verses commanding us to pray.
Psalm 50:15 And CALL UPON ME in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.
Isaiah 55:6 Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, CALL YE UPON HIM while he is near:
Matthew 7:7 ASK, and it shall be given you; SEEK, and ye shall find; KNOCK, and it shall be opened unto you:
Ephesians 6:18 PRAYING ALWAYS with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints
If we love God, we will keep His commandments. In other words, we will obey His commands.
I tell my daughters that when they obey, they should do it out of love not out fear or obligation. So when we pray, we do it because God commands us to pray. Most importantly, we pray because we love God and want to be obedient to His Word.
Prayer allows us to communicate with God
Think of this: if we didn’t pray, how would we communicate with God? Text? Facebook messaging? Instagram messenger? Nope! We can pray from the depths of our hearts and minds. Because God created us, He knows every cell in our body, every thought, every feeling.
Now, you may think “If God already knows, why should I pray?” Not only because He commands it, but prayer allows us to spend time with God. He created us. He wanted us. God wants to spend time with us.
Prayer allows us to spend time with God and to spend time in His presence. We can pour our hearts out to Him! He is closer than our bestest friend in the whole universe! When no one seems to understand, God understands!
James 4:8 Draw night to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
Psalm 147:11 The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope his mercy.
Prayer allows us to spend time with God and to spend time in His presence. We can pour our hearts out to Him! He is closer than our bestest friend in the whole universe!
When no one seems to understand, God understands!
Prayer is a privilege
When you pray, do you think about who you’re praying to? We are praying to our Almighty God and Father! We aren’t praying to a god who can’t hear us! We are praying to our God who never sleeps! Psalm 121:3-4 tells us that “He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
Remember sweet friend, our God is Holy. In the Old Testament, the priest was the one who prayed to God in the temple. The priest was the one who offered sacrifices on behalf of the Israelites. Not just anyone could enter the temple in the presence of the Most High.
Because God is Holy, we cannot enter into His presence and be heard. Only by the blood of the Lamb, God’s only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, the ultimate Sacrifice, Jesus Christ, can we enter into God’s presence.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Because of Jesus, we can come BOLDLY unto the throne of grace! What an awesome privilege to have!!
Have you ever stopped to think about how privileged we are to pray without a gun pointed at our head? We are free to pray!
Prayer is our protection
Everyday, Satan attacks us. He whispers lies. He tries to make sin less than what it is. He is doing all he can to draw us away from God. It could be as subtle as working too much that we can’t (won’t) go to church because we’re ‘too busy’.
1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
Psalm 121:8 The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even forever more.
Proverbs 18:10 The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.
I think one of the reasons why God commands us to pray without ceasing is to pray for protection. I think sometimes I take my day for granted. I assume that everything is going to be fine.
I will wake up in the morning. My husband will drive our daughters safely to school. My car will start. I won’t get a flat tire. I will drive home safely. My daughter will come home safely from work.
Well, my sweet friend, let me tell you that 2 days ago, my oldest daughter, J, was in the ER in anaphylactic shock and respiratory failure (she almost stopped breathing). To see your daughter close to death is TERRIFYING to say the least!
That was a reminder to me that I need to PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. J has had life threatening food allergies since infancy. She has had 4 episodes of anaphylaxis in her 18 years of life.
I am being completely honest with you when I tell you this. I realize that I had become complacent in praying away any allergic reactions. We need to pray friend!
In Nehemiah 4:17-18, the Jews who were rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall, held a trowel in one hand (to build the wall) and a sword in the other hand (to defend themselves against the opposition.
That is a picture of how we should live our lives. In every day, living our lives while using the ‘sword’ of prayer simultaneously. Constantly.
Prayer is our lifeline
Sadly, some people pray when they are at the end of their lives. Even unsaved people will cry out to God when they fear for their lives or lives of loved ones.
God is our lifeline. Because of His Son, Jesus Christ, we can enjoy the privilege of direct access to God. He is available 24/7!
Another way I see prayer as our lifeline is that we need God in every aspect of our lives. We need God to live. He is our lifeline. Just as the body needs our hearts to pump and our lungs to breathe, the spirit needs prayer – communication with God – to live according to God’s will.
