Patience in Prayer (2)

When it comes to prayer, it seems to me that many times there is a process of sorts God runs your request(s) through. I say this because receiving your heavenly grants regularly means (and you have to be ready for this) incremental steps and bit-by-bit revelation.

Just look at Nature and you can see this is how God operates nearly everything. So with your petitions, more often than not, the Lord won't impersonally or carelessly hand you a quicky-type answer. He may want you to know how things work, to see the bigger picture, or simply to gain an appreciation for what you are getting.

Prayer is not a food-court bite to eat; it's having and growing your own sustainable, good-for-the-soul garden. Prayer is not a text message; it's an eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart encounter. Prayer is not a job at McDonald's; it's a golden-oportunity career

You get the point.

Settle into prayer ready to discuss interactively with God's Spirit the details of what is on your heart or what Kingdom aspect God has been prodding you to seek. Have patience!

Patience in Prayer (1)

There are a couple other aspects of prayer people do not expect to encounter; and for this next one, I will need to take a few posts to address it, namely the aspect of patience.

I remember as s young man reading the verse in James about patience having its perfect work. It struck me that we needed to be patient with God. What does that means in regards to God working through prayer? God is a Spirit and what comes from Him is definite, determined, and deep. Prayer, then, is spiritual and must be approached differently than human and natural interaction.

Prayer isn't just a submitted request. Often there are elements of the answer that take time to root, to grow, and to produce final fruit. Think of prayer as a healthy harvest: you get more than what you put in to it--if you wait.

To be continued

Better Than Feelings

Prevailing prayer is work, and I'm pretty sure most people are unaware of this reality.

The danger of this ignorance is that many end up measuring the effectiveness of their prayer life by feelings, such as those of beginner's enthusiasm, religious romanticism, or some other sensational ideal of what prayer should be.

Now, feelings are completely unreliable and may or may not reflect the real strength of a person's present faith; but when you don't know that in regards to prayer, you set yourself up for failure. You will either quit private prayer not long after you've begun (because it's no longer exciting) or you eventually respond to a sense of guilt (because it's no longer automatic) by over compensating in some way--and that is a subject too involved for this blog.

The point is, you will often have to approach prayer as an assignment that requires deliberate effort; but when you do, realize that such an outlook does not necessarily represent a lack of love our even purity. It's most likely the contrary.

God is, after all, well pleased with sacrifices as well as long-term intensions--work for His Kingdom! So push aside the feelings basis and look forward to a different, deeper kind of satisfaction. You are called to a life of prayer, a labor of love; and you are called to reap it's harvest.

Is This for You?

NOTE: If you haven't watched the Prophetic Mandate videos we put out a few months ago, it would really help if you did that now. This blog is based on that series.

After watching The Mandate, you may be saying to yourself, "OK, I'm fired up now, but where do I go from here?" Well that's the question I intend on answering. If nothing else, I want to give you practical ideas that you can shape and use for your own, but please notice the word PRACTICAL.

If all we do is say "amen" and "I agree," we will go nowhere—again! When God speaks, that is sovereign. It's a breakthrough. But after that, whatever grace and inspiration we need will come ONLY as we are busy carrying out what the Lord has spoken.

Raw and stand-alone optimism is no friend here, neither is the kindly but evasive "God bless you." Action is the great and blessed response! And action from all. Action in prayer, action in evangelism, action in being the change God provides to the world.

Take a good look at the men of the Bible. They were men of action, men who with God worked the fields of blessing, men who sweat and cried and bled for God. That's the type of person I am writing to and that's the type who Christ will flow through in our times.