“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing“. These words express a deeply held belief by Martin Luther, and no doubt is shared by many believers today. Thus, should it be any surprise that a vibrant prayer life is also one of the primary targets Satan seeks to destroy? Whether it be through our busy schedules, hoarded leisure, various distractions and/or physical exhaustion, the objective is the same – to keep us from consistent communion with God. And the reasons are obvious, for how impactful can a believer be without prayer? However, when our prayer life is vibrant and consistent, we get to experience its benefits in at least three powerful areas:
Helping: We were not created to be an island unto ourselves. People need people (Genesis 2:18). Even though some of us may be more comfortable with people while others tend to be more guarded, ultimately, God enjoys using His people to help meet both the physical and spiritual needs of the world.
Healing: We often think of healing in physical terms and no doubt this can occur, but we also experience healing in other ways. For even if our physical ailments aren’t healed, this doesn’t mean our prayers have failed. For God heals our spirit (Psalm 30:2) and in doing so we experience restoration from spiritual death, loneliness, sorrow, doubt, worry, fear and anger – just to name a few!
Holy: What separates us from the spiritual greats like Elijah, Abraham, David, Daniel, Moses, Paul and others mentioned in the Bible? For they were people just like us with failings and flaws. Yet, they were also people with vibrant prayer lives and in constant communion with God. What might God be waiting to do in and through us if we simply made ourselves available and invested, rather than rushed, our time with Him (1 Peter 2:9)?
Application: “A Life-Way” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Our prayer life directly influences our way of life. For without it, we are prone to wander and squander. However, when we make God the priority of our life, our prayers and praise will reflect it. As a result, we become more available for Kingdom impact and begin to experience His residing peace – despite the various circumstances, challenges and conquests we encounter in life.
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Most of us don’t have vibrant prayer lives because we don’t believe prayer works. We don’t believe it works because we’ve never really seen it work on our lives. Much of that has to do with western affluence. Who needs to pray when we’ve got everything we need? It’s a vicious cycle of seeing nothing because we’re doing nothing, and doing nothing because we’ve seen nothing.
But ask men like George Müller, who ran orphanages in England and cared for 10,024 orphans in his life. He also established 117 schools and educated over 120,000 children. He distributed 285,407 Bibles, 1,459,506 New Testaments, and and 244,351 other religious books which were translated into twenty other languages. He also supported 150 missionaries around the world, such as Hudson Taylor.
…all without borrowing a dime (or rather “ten pee”). Nor did he take any government assistance.
Müller managed his entire ministry with prayer. There were times when he fed the orphans with food that arrived just hours before it was needed. George Müller wasn’t a man who approached prayer casually or flippantly. His life, and the lives of thousands over the years, depended on it.
I recommend that Christians read books like “Answers to Prayer From George Müller’s Narratives” and “If You Will Ask – Reflections on the Power of Prayer” by Oswald Chambers to see just how powerfully God answers the prayers of those who delight in connecting with Him to build a real relationship.
Paul E, Miller’s book, “A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting” is lighting my prayer time on fire, and re-calibrating my entire spiritual life.
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