In prayer, one of the biggest mountains to cross is unbelief.
Like many others, I often get caught up with how impossible a situation looks. Surely, God can't fix that, I think.
But God can.
Bill Hybels, author of Too Busy Not to Pray and pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago area, confronted this problem in his prayer life many years ago.
He says that he was sitting in a small room overlooking Lake Michigan one summer when he realized what was wrong with his prayer life - lack of faith in God's ability to answer our prayers.
"I decided I didn't want to stay where I was, for all practical purposes disbelieving God's omnipotence," he says in his book. "So I launched an assault on my own lack of conviction."
He began with God's power over nature, looking at Bible passages such as God parting the waters for the Israelites to cross the Red Sea and the Jordan River, feeding the Israelites with manna and birds in the wilderness, producing water out of a rock, and Jesus stilling the great waves of the Sea of Galilee when they threatened to swamp the boat he and the disciples were in.
He read and reread these passages and others before turning to God's power to deal with impossible circumstances. He considered Peter's miraculous delivery in prison by an angel when he was on the point of being executed (Acts 12). Even the believers who welcomed him back were astonished at this answer to their prayers.
Finally, he looked at God's power to change lives. He read about shy Moses becoming a powerful leader, Pharaoh relenting and letting the Israelites leave Egypt, the conversion of the persecutor Saul, and Peter's transformation into a courageous, outspoken leader after Jesus' ascension into heaven.
He recalled the words in Hebrews 13:8 that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever". He reasoned that if God is unchanging, he can do today what he did in Bible times.
I think we all need to look back at what God has already done - in our lives as well as in the Bible. This can give us new energy and conviction as we pray.
Like many others, I often get caught up with how impossible a situation looks. Surely, God can't fix that, I think.
But God can.
Bill Hybels, author of Too Busy Not to Pray and pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in the Chicago area, confronted this problem in his prayer life many years ago.
He says that he was sitting in a small room overlooking Lake Michigan one summer when he realized what was wrong with his prayer life - lack of faith in God's ability to answer our prayers.
"I decided I didn't want to stay where I was, for all practical purposes disbelieving God's omnipotence," he says in his book. "So I launched an assault on my own lack of conviction."
He began with God's power over nature, looking at Bible passages such as God parting the waters for the Israelites to cross the Red Sea and the Jordan River, feeding the Israelites with manna and birds in the wilderness, producing water out of a rock, and Jesus stilling the great waves of the Sea of Galilee when they threatened to swamp the boat he and the disciples were in.
He read and reread these passages and others before turning to God's power to deal with impossible circumstances. He considered Peter's miraculous delivery in prison by an angel when he was on the point of being executed (Acts 12). Even the believers who welcomed him back were astonished at this answer to their prayers.
Finally, he looked at God's power to change lives. He read about shy Moses becoming a powerful leader, Pharaoh relenting and letting the Israelites leave Egypt, the conversion of the persecutor Saul, and Peter's transformation into a courageous, outspoken leader after Jesus' ascension into heaven.
He recalled the words in Hebrews 13:8 that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever". He reasoned that if God is unchanging, he can do today what he did in Bible times.
I think we all need to look back at what God has already done - in our lives as well as in the Bible. This can give us new energy and conviction as we pray.
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