Some Thoughts About Prayer

I’ve been studying prayer for a few years and had decided to present some thoughts

to you all through my devotional long before Pastor asked Gary to teach on that subject.

So I’m going to go ahead as I don’t think we can learn too much about prayer.

First, what is prayer not? Prayer is NOT crying and/or pleading our cause. God is not

moved by our tears to do anything. He wants to give us what we want/need even

more than we want/need it. He is a god and loving God. Crying and begging are

unbelief in God’s goodness. (Ps.103:2)

Prayer is not praying over and over the same thing and just asking endlessly. Long

prayers do not get answered quicker or better than short ones.

Prayer is not telling God how to answer our prayers. Only He knows the best way, and He

know ways we can’t even imagine. Telling Him how is just saying “Hey, I know better than

You, God, so do it this way.” (You will be surprised how often we do this. I was.)

Prayer IS standing in the gap.(Ez.22:30) God looks for someone to “stand in the gap” for

peoples’ or nations’ needs. The gap is the space between the supernatural (where God

is} and the natural (where we are) . God does not do anything except through His people.

So God has determined that someone needs to stand in the gap and be a conduit (so to speak)

for His power and desires to flow through. God called His people “silver” (Ps.66:10).

Silver is the best know conduit for power that exists.

Prayer is, therefore, standing in the gap and being a conduit which God’s power flows through

to reach and answer your prayers for yourself or others. It is stating the need to God and then

expecting an answer no matter how long it takes.

Prayer is being led by the Holy Spirit as to what our prayer should be. He will lead us to pray for

certain people or groups or events, etc. The Holy Spirit will lead us to pray for what God wants,

and that should be our greatest desire. When we know what God wants in a situation, we can

be sure that our prayer will be answered. This includes what God wants for ourselves. If we

can tune into what He wans for us and then stand in the gap for ourselves, we can absolutely

expect a positive answer. (He puts His desires into our hearts so then they become the desires

of OUR hearts.)

The difficult part, at least to me, is listening to and hearing the Holy Spirit instead of our own

desires or our intellect. But He is willing to help us walk in the light and to bless us abundantly.

Remember, He always knows what is best for us and the best way to bring it about. It is well

worth the effort to spend enough time with God so that we can begin to hear His heart in any matter.

Love you all, Terry