Prayer

"Prayer is not mainly where we give God our to-do list, but where we ask God for help in accomplishing His to-do-list." - Mark Driscoll

Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy.Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. (Isaiah 64:7)

Prayer is our access to God. When we relate to God, we cannot help but be changed. And if we are changed, then our situation changes because we are no longer the same person we were before our prayer. The Bible says prayer is character forming. It increases our faith and without faith it’s impossible to please God and know God’s blessing (Heb. 11:6).

Prayer is also a valued coping practice. Prayer conditions us to cast our troubles onto God and depend on God’s care and sufficiency. Rather than borrow tomorrow’s troubles, prayer keeps us focused on what is at hand and what we can do.

Prayer is likewise a clarifying agent. Nothing clears my head better than a time of prayer. It helps me see a situation more clearly and from different perspectives.
Prayer is a change agent. It changes a person and thus that person will respond to situations differently. When our way of responding changes then people’s responses to us changes as well. The cycle is changed.

One of my favorite theologians is P. T. Forsyth, the Scottish pastor who was born in 1848 and died on November 11, 1927. Forsyth studied under the greatest theological minds of his time, yet he discovered that talking about God is not nearly as helpful and edifying as talking to God. Forsyth is credited with launching a new theological movement that put the person of Jesus Christ front and center in our spiritual lives and theological thinking.

At an ominous time when the world seemed hell-bent on war, Forsyth preached about the sin of prayerlessness. He said the “the worst sin [of all] is prayerlessness.” Prayerlessness is the root cause of human misery.

The Apostle James teaches, “Draw near to God and God will draw near to you” (4:8). Forsyth notes, “We are left by God” because of our “lack of seeking God.” And due to our failure to seek God, we become estranged from and abandoned by others.

Prayer is the great producer of sympathy; it puts us in touch with others. When God fills our hearts, God in turn makes more room in our hearts for others and for their conditions.

Forsyth taught that not wanting to pray is the sin behind sin and it ends up with our not even being able to pray. Failing to pray, we starve ourselves and thus we become spiritually emaciated and helpless.

The unfortunate historic record of World War I revealed Forsyth to be a true prophet.

I think he’s the prophet we need to heed in today. I only hope that asking candidates about their practice of prayer is a result of our growing appreciation to be in continual fellowship with God and all others. I further hope we are not guilty of asking candidates to be responsible for acts of faithfulness about which we ourselves might be derelict.

If we can be prayerful in all things, then we just may witness a new movement of grace in our time.

Reverend Greer is the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. You can contact him at awakenings@mountainhomemag.com

http://www.strategicrenewal.com/strategic-renewal-e--devotional/do-less-pray-more-three-attitudes-to-cultivate-intimacy-with-god/

www.bloggingtheologically.com/2013/07/12/a-holy-boldness-in-prayer