The Power of Prayer

Over the last week I have been studying biblical prayers in the bible, while studying this topic I have really felt convicted. Conviction is not a bad thing, to me its simply the Holy Spirits prompting for me to improve in certain areas of my life, its not the first time I've felt conviction and I'm sure it won't be the last time either. Truthfully my prayer life is not what I'd like it to be, it's not even close. Depending on how tired I am often determines if I pray, how long I pray or sit and have quiet time with God. Praise God that the love He has for me is not dependent upon my prayer life! No matter how much we pray, there is always room for improvement in our daily prayer lives. We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to "pray without ceasing or to pray continually." Just off that one verse alone I know I can do better...a whole lot better. Imagine how much different our lives could be if we truly prayed all the time. My God! I believe we would be filled with the peace and joy of God through every circumstance, hardship, and trial that we ever faced! How amazing would that be! I want to do better, I want us all to do better in our prayer lives, not just praying for ourselves but others as well.

Let's be truthful most of the time when we pray, we are praying for situations or people directly related to us or praying for God to work things out in our favor. I know I'm guilty of this on a daily basis. Since I've started reading over biblical prayers in the bible I've realized how self serving my prayer life is. OUCH! It hurts to admit that out loud but it's the truth. If it's all about me or people that are apart of my life how can I expect to accomplish anything for God? How many times in the bible, does it say "honor others above yourselves?" Praying for other people instead of constantly praying for ourselves is "honoring others above ourselves." Let's not stop there, how about praying for people that we've never met or encountered before? In Colossians 1:9-14, Apostle Paul is praying for the Colossians, whom he has never met before. He's not praying simple prayers of blessings over them, no he is praying for them to be filled with knowledge and wisdom through the Holy Spirit, he's praying for them to live lives pleasing and worthy to the Lord, he's praying that they bear fruit in every good work, he's praying for them to have patience and endurance, he's praying for their salvation! I've never prayed a prayer like this for people I know let alone don't know. I mean yes, when there is some kind of natural disaster, we all say a prayer for the people effected but how often are we praying for their salvation, praying that God would use this natural disaster to draw people near to him? I don't know about anyone else but my answer is never, never have I prayed those kinds of prayers but I want to start. I want to start because we are commanded to pray without ceasing and called to be disciples, we are called to go out and make disciples and there is simply no way to do that without prayer!

I believe we underestimate the power of prayer. Prayer gives us 24/7 access to God. Prayer is the key that unlocks all doors and not just doors for us or the people we know but for people we don't know as well. What if your praying for a complete stranger is apart of the plan for their salvation, would that give you any incentive to change the way you pray? My goal for myself is to start praying for future believers, truthfully I know this will be a bit of a challenge because it's a change and sometimes change can be hard but well needed. I know I can do it with the help of Christ because with Him "all things are possible!" I hope you all are as inspired and encouraged as I am to pray at all times, I truly believe if we all prayed this way and for people we don't know this world could be a better place. Besides when your so busy praying for others, it shifts your focus from your needs to the needs of others, giving you less time to worry, giving you more peace of mind and who couldn't use a little more of that?

My challenge for you all is to change some things up in your daily prayer lives, pray more! Get out of the routine of just praying for yourself and others you know, pray for the homeless person you seen walking down the street, pray for the people in the car accident you just passed, pray for people in the unreached areas of the world! Pray without ceasing!