The Power of Simple Prayer: How to Talk With God About Everything Read online

  I think one of the reasons we sometimes feel unfulfilled in prayer or sense that we are not “finished” praying about a matter is that we spend so much time just praying our prayers. But I tell you: there is a better, higher, more effective way: praying God’s prayers. To be honest with you, if I am praying my prayer, I can pray about something for fifteen minutes and still feel unfinished; but if I am being led by the Holy Spirit and praying God’s prayer, I can pray two sentences and feel completely satisfied.

  If we will pray about our inner lives—about our thoughts and motives and about our relationship with God—then He will take care of the externals.

  When I write about not praying “our” prayers, what I mean is that we can move beyond praying carnal, soulish prayers to praying Spirit-filled, Spirit-led prayers. We can pray God’s prayers instead of our own if we are willing to make some adjustments in the way we think about prayer and how we approach God. For example, when we pray our prayers, we focus on praying for ourselves—our health and well-being, our financial needs, the challenges we face, our families, and other things that concern us. But I believe if we will pray about our inner lives—about our thoughts and motives and about our relationship with God—He will take care of the externals. If we will pray to build ourselves up on the inside, God will take care of the outside.

  I began to sense tremendous fulfillment in my prayer life when I stopped praying so many carnal, selfish prayers and prayed more like I thought Jesus would have prayed. I want to reiterate that there is nothing wrong with asking God to meet our needs. I believe we can freely ask Him for anything without fear of reproach, but I have also come to understand that the things we pray about reveal our level of spiritual maturity.

  Asking God for what we need and desire in the natural realm is definitely not wrong, but we should not major on those things. God’s Word says that He knows what we need before we ask Him, so all we need to do is simply ask and let Him know that we are trusting Him to take care of everything that concerns us while we focus the majority of our prayer time on talking to Him about the needs of others (both natural and spiritual), the growth of His kingdom, and our spiritual needs. For example, I need to endure everything that comes my way with good temper much more than I need a new dress for a party. I need to abound in love and show kindness to people at all times much more than I need a larger house. I need to use wisdom with my spoken words much more than I need a promotion at work.

  Here is another example of how to pray a Spirit-led prayer. Let’s say you have two rowdy, rebellious teenage children in your house. And let’s say, when you pray, you start by telling God how those two are on your last nerve and you just want to scream. Then you move on to complaining about them and telling Him how miserable you are. After you pray, you yell at your teenagers, tell them how awful they are, and inform them that their lives will never amount to anything. If this is the case, then your home is probably filled with strife; your family is never at peace, and your spouse is as angry and unhappy as you are. It is quite easy for our prayer time to become “complaining sessions” rather than true prayer. These types of prayers never bring God’s help into a situation.

  If you will begin to pray God’s prayers for the situation, instead of running to Him with all your complaints, you will begin to see change. A “God prayer” would go something like this: “God, I am so frustrated with these teenagers today, but Your Word says my children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward and they are like arrows in the hand of a warrior. Your Word also says great shall be their peace. So, God, I come before You with thanksgiving and I ask for wisdom as I deal with my teenagers. Lord, give me understanding about the things they go through and help me have the ability to help them. I ask that You would pour out Your love in my heart for them. I pray Your love would abound in me, Your grace would flow through me, and my heart would be right before You and toward my family. Let the peace of Christ rule and reign in my heart—and let it reign in our home.”

  When you pray according to the example above, your anger will begin to dissipate. You will begin to be able to love your teenagers with the love of God and you will be able to begin to establish peace in your home. God will begin to do things in your circumstances because you have stopped praying soulish prayers that are focused on your circumstances, you are no longer murmuring and complaining about the children you asked Him to give you and you have begun to pray about what is more important to Him—the condition of your heart.

  Let the Holy Spirit Lead

  Part of the way God teaches us to pray is to help us learn to follow the Holy Spirit as we pray. Without a doubt, the most effective way to pray God’s prayers is to let the Holy Spirit lead us, and we do that by staying before the Lord and asking Him to put on our hearts what He wants us to pray about—things that originate in God’s heart, not in our minds. As I have already written, we really must move beyond praying our own prayers for what we want. Prayer is a more serious business than that—and the Holy Spirit will lead us into the most amazing exploits in prayer if we will simply ask Him what to pray, wait for Him to answer, and then obey.

  We are extremely unwise when we say we do not have time to wait on God and allow Him to lead us as we pray. We find ourselves waiting forty-five minutes for a table at a restaurant, but say we do not have time to wait on God. We can save all kinds of time and energy later if we will wait on God now. You see, trying to figure out what to pray and striving to drum up prayers can be tiring. That kind of drudgery in the flesh simply is not fruitful; it is not grace-filled. Our spirits know—even when our minds try to convince us otherwise—when we are not accomplishing anything in the spiritual realm and when our prayers are not effective.

  I have learned that in order to pray effective prayers—whether I am praying for my children, myself, the ministry, a neighbor, or a crisis on the other side of the world—I have to wait on God and let Him lead me. I just take a few minutes and say, “Okay, God, such-and-such is on my heart. What is it You’re trying to say here? Show me what You want me to pray for that person or that situation.” Most of the time, within a few seconds, impressions will start to come to my heart: I will understand how I need to pray; I will pray more specifically than I normally would; I will quickly feel satisfied.

  Letting the Holy Spirit lead our prayers will bring great freedom to our lives and make prayer so much easier and so much more fun.

  If we will begin our prayers by asking the Holy Spirit to lead us, we will not find ourselves becoming bored when we pray because we will not pray about the same situations or for the same people all the time. Prayer can become boring if it is not kept fresh, but the Holy Spirit is full of creativity. Furthermore, when He leads, our wandering minds will not be in control of our prayers; we will not be praying out of a sense of obligation and our prayers will not be ritualistic. We will simply know what is on God’s heart, pray about those things, and allow the Holy Spirit to help us pray in ways that keep our communication with Him fresh and life-giving.

  Letting the Holy Spirit lead our prayers will bring great freedom to our lives and make prayer so much easier and so much more fun. It completely relieves us of the feeling that we are respon-sible for praying for everything we read about or hear about. This is because we understand that we are only responsible for praying about what God puts on our hearts and for the people and situations that fall into our realm of responsibility. Personally, I do not ever feel guilty when I am not praying what other people are praying for, because I know that God uses different people to pray for different situations. If each person will pray for the things God calls him or her to pray for and allow the Holy Spirit to lead, the entire world will be covered!

  Also, we need to be free from legalism and obligation as we pray. God does not want us to pray because we think we have to or we think we should. We need to follow the Holy Spirit and pray about whatever He leads us to address in prayer, for however long He leads us to pray. When our spiritual e
ars are tuned in to His voice, we will be able to hear His instruction and His encouragement. We will know what matters to Him and be able to pray exactly the way He wants us to pray—which always yields tremendous results.

  PRAYING WITH THE MIND

  In his book The Spiritual Man, Watchman Nee wrote about allowing the mind to aid the spirit when the spirit seems to be silent. I am sure he was not advocating praying soulish prayers, but he meant when we see a need or think of something we feel should be prayed about, then we should simply begin praying based on what we know in our minds and wait to see if our spirits affirm the direction in which we are praying. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 14:15, “I will pray with my spirit [by the Holy Spirit that is within me], but I will also pray [intelligently] with my mind and understanding.”

  In prayer, we need not always wait for God’s burden to fall upon us before we begin to pray. We may begin in the mind and search for what the Spirit cooperates with. We don’t always understand the ebb and flow of the Spirit. Sometimes the power of the Holy Spirit is abundant and we feel strongly led in one direction or another, but at other times we must confess that He is totally silent and still. During those times, we must begin to pray according to the knowledge we have in our minds. As we do, we will either sense strength and enthusiasm coming from the Spirit or continue to experience silence and no help from Him. In that case, we should go on to something else and continue doing so until we discover what is on God’s heart for us to pray about.

  When we see needs around us, we are not to wait until a wonderful feeling overtakes us and energizes us to pray. We begin in faith, praying about a need we are aware of, and we find out soon enough whether or not we are praying according to God’s will. We will either feel a wonderful flow in prayer, in which we do not have to struggle for words, or we will sense that we are struggling, merely trying to come up with something spiritual to say because we feel we “should” be praying about that situation. Praying in the Spirit can simply mean that we are committed not to pray without Him. Even though we may begin on our own, we will not persist unless the Holy Spirit hooks up with us and gives His approval and divine energy.

  OPPOSITION IN PRAYER

  We do encounter resistance as we seek to follow the Holy Spirit in prayer, and many times that opposition comes in the form of fear—not just major fears, such as fear of a natural disaster or a terrible disease or some other catastrophe—but a nagging sense of anxiety and unrest about common, ordinary things. The devil even tries to make us afraid of praying boldly. He wants us to approach God in fear rather than in faith. He reminds us of our sins and shortcomings and makes us feel as if we have no right to ask God for much of anything. The Bible teaches us repeatedly to “come boldly” to the throne (see Ephesians 3:12; Hebrews 4:16).

  Some people live their everyday lives with a constant undercurrent of little fears, making comments like, “I’m afraid I won’t get to work on time with all this traffic,” or “I’m afraid I’ll burn the roast,” or “I’m afraid it’s going to rain out the ball game on Saturday.” These everyday fears really are minor ones, but they are still fears and they still hinder a lifestyle of prayer by keeping people focused on their worries and anxieties. Instead of allowing the enemy to pick at us with little things and infect our lives with these low-level, ongoing fears, we need to pray and trust God.

  We need to replace the little fear-filled thoughts and conversations in our everyday lives with short, simple prayers. My motto is “pray about everything and fear nothing.” When we are developing a lifestyle of prayer, we will need to eliminate the habits and thought patterns that do not promote or support prayer. The Holy Spirit wants to help us do that, so we need to ask Him to lead us out of negative habits and into the kind of prayer that keeps us regularly connected to God in faith throughout the day. As we continue to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us in this way, our prayers will become as easy and habitual as breathing.

  WE GROW AS WE GO

  Just as breathing helps us grow naturally, a lifestyle of prayer will help us grow spiritually. Then, as we mature spiritually, our prayer lives will keep developing and our prayers will become increasingly effective. One of the best things about prayer is that it is progressive. It is not a skill we master; it is an unfolding relationship we enjoy. As it unfolds, we learn to pray more often and more effectively; we learn to follow the Holy Spirit more closely; we learn to pray with more confidence; we learn to commune with God on a deeper level and to hear His voice more clearly.

  One of the best things about prayer is that it is progressive. It is not a skill we master; it is an unfolding relationship we enjoy.

  Have you ever been happy in your prayer life, feeling that it was going well for a while and then, for no apparent reason, you start to feel restless, bored, distracted, or weary? Have you ever felt a nagging that something just was not right about your prayers or a stirring to do something differently, but you did not know exactly what it is? Has it ever seemed that you were striving to pray, even though you did not really want to, or that prayer had become overly laborious? Most of the time, when you have such impressions, the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you something.

  Your inner man (your spirit, the part of you that communes with God) knows when something is not right in your prayer life, because the Holy Spirit lives in your spirit and will let you know when your prayers are not as they should be or when something needs to change. The good news is that many times when we feel that way, God knows we are ready for more and is urging us on to the next level. Sometimes when we become uncomfortable in our prayer lives, God is trying to teach us something to help us grow in our relationship with Him. He will always love us where we are, but He will not leave us where we are, and that is true in prayer just as it is in other areas of our lives.

  Even though God wants us to live joyful, contented lives, He sometimes causes a discontent or a feeling that something is not right because He does not want us to continue doing the same old things anymore. He wants to prod us to seek Him to find out what’s wrong because He wants to take us to new levels. He may be wanting us to pray in a new way or even to dedicate more time to prayer. He might be leading a person who already prays a short while in the morning to set aside the lunch hour at work for prayer and fellowship with Him. He might be leading a person to study more in the area of prayer so he or she can learn what to do next. He might be leading an individual who often prays alone to join a group that meets regularly for prayer.

  God always wants us to grow stronger, to go deeper, and to increase in intimacy with Him through prayer. Most of the time, He leads us into that process of maturity by leading us out of places where we have been comfortable in the past. In this process, though, it is important to realize this: As God is teaching us to pray and moving us along in the process of prayer, we do not need to let ourselves feel condemned or stay frustrated and aggravated; we need to find out whether God is calling us into a new place or whether the devil is harassing us. This is because discomfort, dissatisfaction, or the absence of peace in our prayer lives can also be the work of the enemy; sometimes he opposes believers when we try to pray.

  The devil is a liar and he delights in trying to make us feel as if our prayers are useless and of no value. When we reach the point that we feel something is “just not right” in our prayer lives, we simply need to ask God what is happening and take time to wait on Him to answer. He will show us if He is calling us to a new level in prayer or if the devil is trying to steal the prayer life we have already developed. We must always remember that the devil hates prayer on any level and will try to stop it. If God wants us to pray (and He does), He wants us to enjoy it. He always accepts us just the way we are and He never condemns us. He will hear and answer even the puniest, most pitiful prayer when it comes from the heart, and He always honors sincerity and faith. At the same time, He will not let us stay in those places of immaturity, but He will call us to move on to greater levels of faith, power, and effectiveness.<
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  Every person’s prayer life is different, so feel free to pursue prayer the way God leads. Prayer is not about laboring or striving or trying to perform; it’s simply about talking to God. As I wrote in chapter 2, we do not need to try to be where someone else is or pray with the proficiency someone else has because that person may be enjoying a prayer life that has taken years of practice and we may not be as far along in our walk with God as that person is. It’s all right for us to be “younger” than others in prayer; God still hears and answers us, no matter the extent of our experience. Comparing ourselves with others only makes us miserable. God is happy simply because we are learning and growing.

  Some people can pray more effective prayers than others; some have more faith than others; some understand the ways of God better than others; some obey God more quickly than others; some spend more time in the Word than others. Sometimes, a people may be ready to move to a new level in prayer, but cannot because another issue needs to be addressed. For example, they may need to forgive someone before their relationship with God can improve. Or, a person may need a deeper revelation of God’s love before undertaking a challenging personal or ministry opportunity. Regardless, we all start somewhere and go somewhere. God allows us to begin wherever we are and then helps us grow.

  We never become certified experts in prayer and we never stop learning to communicate with God; our experiences just keep getting richer and better.

  Prayer is progressive and we all move from one level to another. No one ever “masters” prayer because there is no limit to the depth of relationship we can have with God; it just keeps growing, keeps going deeper, keeps getting stronger. Our ability to pray develops and improves over time. We never become certified experts in prayer and we never stop learning to communicate with God; our experiences just keep getting richer and better.