| PRAYER RELEASES POWER
Last week, we studied about the great wonder and glory of prayer. Now doesn’t that leave us wishing that we could experience this joyous prayer life too? So, today let us look at how we can begin praying.
Before we start taking notes on the different body postures and terminologies to be used in prayer, let’s pause for a second. It doesn’t matter to God whether our eyes are tightly shut or our lips are constantly moving or we toss in a certain number of praises. You see, God cares about our heart posture. So we are going to learn about what is really involved in praying.
1. FOCUS
Here’s a familiar scenario.
Husband watching television. Wife pouts and complains, ‘You don’t pay me any attention. The television gets more of your attention than me’.
What would the husband do?
He would turn off the television, set the remote aside, turn around, look at his wife and pay complete attention to her. (Ideally)
Similarly when we are praying, we must look at God and give Him our complete attention.
Looking denotes acknowledging.
Sadly, many a time we start our prayer acknowledging God, but then begin to meander on a different tangent and then conclude with an emphatic, ‘In Jesus’ name – Amen’. Narration of our problems take up the chunk of our prayer time mingled with a few glances toward God. Instead, our prayer should be a time of focusing primarily on God and glimpsing occasionally at our problems. Let me hasten to add that it does not mean that God does not care about our problems or that they are trivial. But the beauty of the matter is that when we focus and see God’s glory and power, then our faith in God’s ability to handle our problems will arise. Trust will abound and our worries will fade.
HOW DO WE FOCUS?
That raises an important question?
How can we focus on a God who is invisible? We can’t make eye contact with Him because He doesn’t have a body like ours. Now, some people attempt to get over this problem by closing their eyes and thinking of what they have heard about God. Some others gaze at the Nature and think of God. All these are helpful to an extent. In fact even the Psalmist acknowledges it in Psalm 19.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,
Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.
Its rising is from one end of heaven,
And its circuit to the other end;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
Psalm 19:1-7
From verses 1 through 6, the Psalmist adores God by looking at the beautiful creation around Him. However, it doesn’t give a complete picture of the splendor of this God who loved and died for us at the Cross.
Then what does?
Verse 7 gives us the answer. The only thing that perfectly describes our glorious Lord is His Word.
If we want to see God and focus on Him, then nothing can match the beauty of His Word.
This is further evidenced in the following Psalms.
The words of the Lord are pure words, Like silver tried in a furnace of earth, Purified seven times.
Psalm 12:6
The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.
Psalm 119:160
2. MEDITATE
The next step in praying involves meditating on His Word.
Often many of us read the Bible superficially. We read through a few passages quickly and mumble our prayer. Reading the Word has in some ways become just a customary thing to do before praying. But in order to make our prayer more meaningful, we must read the Word and meditate on it first. Meditating means deep focused thinking, confessing, applying and imagining what our lives would be like if the Word came true. It’s a directed targeted thinking and speaking with God based on His Word. Only then will the Word really take root in our hearts.
Let us compare it with a few real life examples.
Think of a heavy downpour of rain. Well, the abundant rain will be insufficient if the soil is not raked and prepared for absorbing the rain.
Or imagine that you feel like eating Chicken 65 late at night. You have two options. Either, hurry to the store, buy the chicken, rush home and fry the chicken or buy the chicken in the morning, marinate it with spices and fry the chicken after a couple of hours. We can be absolutely certain that the second option would yield a much tastier Chicken 65!
The Word of God is like a marinade. As it sinks deep into our hearts, we will be able to focus on God.
Let’s look at how Kind David applied this in his life.
I cried out to God with my voice— To God with my voice; And He gave ear to me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; My soul refused to be comforted. I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah
You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I have considered the days of old, The years of ancient times. I call to remembrance my song in the night; I meditate within my heart, And my spirit makes diligent search.
Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favorable no more? Has His mercy ceased forever? Has His promise failed forevermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has He in anger shut up His tender mercies? Selah
And I said, “This is my anguish; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” I will remember the works of the Lord; Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will also meditate on all Your work, And talk of Your deeds. Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; Who is so great a God as our God?
You are the God who does wonders; You have declared Your strength among the peoples. You have with Your arm redeemed Your people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
The waters saw You, O God; The waters saw You, they were afraid; The depths also trembled. The clouds poured out water; The skies sent out a sound; Your arrows also flashed about. The voice of Your thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lit up the world; The earth trembled and shook. Your way was in the sea, Your path in the great waters, And Your footsteps were not known. You led Your people like a flock By the hand of Moses and Aaron.
Psalm 77:1-20
In this Psalm, we see the Psalmist adoring and praising God. He remembers the glorious ways; God helped the Israelites in the past.
Then at the end of verse 15, King David says, ‘Selah’.
Selah means ‘Stop and think’.
He does not run through the rest of the miracles. He pauses to dwell on God’s wondrous works. Often when we are troubled by problems, we find it quite difficult to dwell on God’s awesomeness. Well, we can definitely take a leaf from the Psalmist who says in Psalm 119:23 that, ‘Princes also sit and speak against me, but Your servant meditates on Your statutes’. Even though powerful people plotted against him, he decided that he would meditate on God’s Word instead.
Do you think we can meditate on God’s Word similarly? Well, actually it’s not too hard. Our human minds are constantly meditating on something all the time. Here is an example. When our child is unwell, his sickness will be running through our mind through the day no matter where we go. So instead of worrying about it, we could meditate on God’s promise that He can heal our child.
Let us try to meditate on one Scripture passage together.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked came against me To eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, My heart shall not fear; Though war may rise against me, In this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.
Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
Psalm 27:1-8
The Lord – The Psalmist is talking about Yahweh. Jehovah. The same powerful God of the Old Testament who delivered the Israelites out of slavery and parted the Red Sea is alive even today.
He is my light– Light was a precious commodity in the olden days. Often David and his men had to travel in the dark nights and they had no way of knowing who was hidden in the cloud of darkness. But David says, ‘It’s okay. I have the greatest source of light, God Himself. He will shine the light and show me where the enemy is hiding’. As we read this passage, we can take heart that this same God will shine light into the crevices of our lives.
Salvation – The Lord also promises to be our Savior. We don’t have to fear anyone!
Strength – We can rest in the truth that when our strength fails, the Lord would be our strength.
Enemy army – King David faced many enemy armies. It was a normal thing in those days for nations to go to war. So he says that he would not fear, but be confident because the Lord was his light.
Dwell in God’s temple – His heart desired to gaze upon God’s beauty and meditate on Him. He wanted to see how amazingly powerful and glorious His Yahweh was. Like David, if we can get a glimpse of that glory, then our enemies and problems will appear like Lilliput in front of Him.
Hiding place –David knew that in times of distress and despair, God would hide him.
Seeking the Lord – Our God wants us to seek His face. As we do that we will get a bigger revelation of God Himself.
May I encourage all of us to meditate on God’s Word in a similar fashion, every day?
HOW LONG SHOULD WE MEDITATE?
Lastly, let me tell you one more thing. We must meditate until praise and thanksgiving comes automatically out of our mouth. In fact, that will be a testimony of the fact that we have seen God. When we get our first glimpse of the majestic Himalayas, wouldn’t our heart gush out in amazement? Only words of awe will tumble out of our mouths.
Psalm 95:2 says, ‘Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms’. Praise is truly meaningful only when it comes out of our heart truthfully! So as we meditate on our God who created this world, holds it in place, loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins and is constantly worshipped by angels – how can praise not flow out of us!
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SEEMON MINISTRIES 