Living thankfully

Several Christian writers have helped me see the endless possibilities for thanking God.

Most Christians know that God deserves thanks.  Above all, followers of God should thank him for bringing us into his family and assuring us of an eternal relationship with him.

Having an "attitude of gratitude", as one television preacher calls it, is good for our own emotional and spiritual well-being, too.

But, I confess that I sometimes run out of specific things to show my gratitude to the Lord.

Is giving thanks important to God?

Yes, indeed.  In Luke 17, we read that Jesus healed 10 lepers and only one returned to thank him.  

Jesus remarked: "Didn't I heal 10 men?  Where are the other nine?  Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?"

So I should be thankful.  But for what?

The short answer is - everything.

I can think of one category immediately - personal blessings.  I can thank the Lord for my wife and children and grandchildren.  I can thank him for good health.  I can thank him for a comfortable life.  And I could go on along this line for a while.

John R. Bisagno, author of The Power of Positive Praying, divides personal blessings into physical and spiritual blessings.

He says we should not forget God's physical blessings that we take for granted - such as being able to walk, talk, eat normally, think, see.  We should remember that some people can't do these things.  And even if we have physical problems, we should be thankful for the physical abilities we still have.

Bisagno goes on to mention other things we should be thankful for - our homes, our possessions, our furniture, our cars, the food we have.

Then, of course, there are the spiritual blessings we have each received.  

"Thank him for Himself, for His Son - for His life, death and resurrection.  Thank Him for your own personal experiences with Him, your own salvation. Thank Him for the Spirit of God who led you to Him and the person He used."

Thank God for his leadership in your life, his joy and his peace.

Bisagno goes on to suggest thanking him for the churches we belong to - the church staff, the pastor, the volunteers, the people we know.

Then, we can thank the Lord for all the blessings we share with others - the sunshine, the beauties of creation.  And we can even thank him for things that many would not consider blessings - rain and snow and great heat.  Because each has its own value in creation.

Another writer, Ann Voskamp, author of One Thousand Gifts, kept a list of things such as the sun shining on a field at the end of the day.  She treasured these everyday things - and important family things - and wrote them down.

She says it changed her.  She became more content and joyful.

Being thankful pleases God - and does us a world of good.

 

David's secret

David, shepherd boy and king, teaches me the secret of real prayer and praise.

The secret? God is everything and I am nothing without the Lord.

Typical of David's thoughts is this passage in Psalm 20:  "Some nations boast in their chariots and horses, but we boast in the name of the Lord our God."

The name of God means the character of God - who he is.

David complained to God when things were going badly for him.  And he was sometimes depressed.  But he was filled with underlying trust in the Lord, even in the bad times.

For instance, in Psalm 43:5, David fights his depression with these words: "Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad?  I will put my hope in God!  I will praise him again - my Saviour and my God!"

David sought God's guidance even in the midst of battle preparations. 

In 2 Samuel 5, David and his followers are cornered by the Philistines in the Valley of Rephaim and David turns to the Lord for direction on how to fight them.  God tells him not to attack them head-on but to circle around behind the enemy and wait for the sound of marching feet in the trees before attacking.  He does and wins a battle against superior numbers.

Psalm 27 expresses David's heart.  He says he will not be afraid even though he is surrounded by the enemy because God is with him.

And then he declares: "The one thing I ask of the Lord - the thing I seek most - is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, delighting in the Lord's perfections and meditating in his temple."

In 1 Samuel 13, Samuel tells King Saul that God has already chosen a leader to replace him - a man after God's own heart.  That man was David.

Why was he man after God's own heart?  Because David's heart sought God's heart and was willing to do whatever God asked him to do - even when everything seemed stacked against him.

I realize that I depend a lot on my own plans.  And I want some glory for myself.

David knew who deserved the glory - it was his Lord.

David went off the rails in his life - particularly when he lusted after Bathsheba, another man's wife.  He arranged for the death of Bathsheba's husband and married Bathsheba.

But he repented when his sin was pointed out by the prophet Nathan.

There is sometimes a cost to worshiping God and doing what he asks us to do.  The prophet Jeremiah was persecuted when he warned the people that judgement awaited them if they persisted in turning away from the Lord.  But Jeremiah's prophecies and his example have had an eternal impact.

Like David, the apostle Paul considered all his accomplishments worthless "compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8).

That's the spirit of praise and prayer that truly touches God's heart.

Praying boldly

Great prayer warriors pray boldly.

But do you have to be superhuman to pray with confidence?

No, says Derek Prince.  You just have to follow the guidelines for prayer in the Bible.

In Hebrews 4:16, we are told: "Let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."

This applies to everyone - to you and me, just as much as to great Christians that we admire.  It's a guarantee that God will deal with our deepest needs when we need his mercy and help.

I must say that I am more tentative in my prayers than I should be. 

In his book Secrets of Prayer, Prince says that we can be confident our prayers will be answered so long as we are praying for what God wants and are in right relationship with the Lord.

The author, whose life was bathed in prayer, declares boldly: "For my part, I love to pray - and what is more, I get what I pray for."

That's a strong claim.  But Prince makes a thorough case, based on the Bible and his long experience in prayer.  His careful approach reflects his academic training at Cambridge University before the Second World War.  He died in 2003 at the age of 88.

The bedrock of prayer must be willingness to do what God wants us to do - no matter what, he says.

Here is a rough digest of Prince's thoughts on answered prayer:

• We must seek his will - not our will - through reading the scriptures, noting especially God's promises to believers.  Praying scripture is very effective;
• We must seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit in prayer;
• We must pray with the right motives;
• We must pray with faith.  Faith is trusting what the Bible tells us about the character and reliability of God;
• We must forgive those who hurt us;
• We must pray in the name of Jesus.  We come before God based on what Jesus has done for us on the cross; who he is as the Son of God; and the relationship we have with Christ; and
• We must pray with confidence, looking to God and not the problems we face.  And we must confess whatever sins we have and then accept that God has forgiven us and move forward.

"You will never pray a higher or more effective prayer than when, guided by the Holy Spirit, you go to the Word, find the promise that relates to you and your situation and say, 'Lord, you said it; You do it it,'" the author says.  "If you do this, having met the previous conditions for prayer, you will discover the secret of effective praying."

Bold and encouraging words.

Mary's prayer

I am filled with awe and admiration whenever I think of the young girl Mary's words when she is told by the angel Gabriel that she will give birth to the son of God.

She is initially troubled because she is a virgin, but Gabriel assures her the birth will be miraculous.

And she responds: "I am the Lord's servant.  May it be to me as you have said." (Luke 1)

What trust and faith in God!

I consider her words a prayer of acceptance and faith.  She believed God was honouring her by choosing her to bear Jesus (Luke 1:47-49).

But it was not an easy choice for her.

Even Joseph, her husband-to-be, thought she had done something wrong - pregnant before marriage - and was thinking of divorcing her quietly.  But an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and explained the miraculous conception.

There is no doubt that Gabriel's appearance must have been amazing.  But Moses tried to get out of leading the Israelites even though God spoke to him from a burning bush.  And Gideon tested God several times when an angel told him he was to lead the Israelites.

Yet Mary - a humble young woman - accepted her role immediately.

It is that kind of faith that God is looking for in me.  Am I willing to do what he asks me to do?  Am I prepared to say to the Lord  "Your will be done" no matter what the cost may seem to be?

Derek Prince, author of Secrets of a Prayer Warrior, says that submission to God's will is essential in seeing prayers answered.

Prince declares that he gets what he prays for.  He points to great prayer promises in the Bible available to all of us.  He has experienced personally marvellous answers to prayer.

But there are conditions.  And the first is "come with reverent submission" to the Lord.

Hebrews 5:7 says Jesus' prayers on earth were heard because of his reverent submission to the Father.

Jesus displayed this virtue most vividly in the Garden of Gethsemane when he sweat drops of blood while pleading with the Father to spare him death on the cross.  But he surrendered himself entirely to the destiny chosen for him, saying: "Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." (Matthew 26:39)

This may seem fatalistic.  But Prince doesn't see it that way.

"When we pray for anything, we need to begin by asking ourselves, Am I praying for this thing because I want it, or because God wants it?  It makes a great deal of difference.  If it is because I want it, my prayers may not be answered; but if it is because God wants it, then my prayers will be answered."

George Muller was a great example of seeking God's will in a situation and then praying confidently until he saw the answer.  He kept a diary of his requests and God's answers for decades while he operated orphanages in England without ever asking people for money.

On significant matters, he would pray for the Holy Spirit to guide him as he read scriptures and placed his requests before God.  When he was convinced of God's will in a situation, he knew he would receive a "Yes" in response.

"When we say, 'Your will be done,' we are becoming instruments for God to do what he wants," Prince says.

And nothing is more powerful than that.

Think of it.  When Mary said "Yes" to God, she gave birth to the Messiah.

And the world was changed.

Let's be blessers

A family changed dramatically when the parents started blessing their children rather than criticizing them.

Kerry Kirkwood, author of The Power of Blessing, says the parents were at their wits' end because their teenaged children were rebelling "and their family was on the verge of falling apart".

They had told counsellors how bad their children were but saw no change in the behaviour of their offspring.

Then, they heard about blessing and they took a different approach.

"They began to replace angry words and expressions of disappointment with words of love and blessing - a difficult transition," Kirkwood says.

The family was transformed as attitudes changed, the children's schoolwork improved and "peace came to their house".  In fact, the children wrote their parents a letter expressing love for their father and mother.

A godly blessing is a form of prayer.  For instance, if we know someone is struggling with fear, we can pray something like: "May you know in your heart that God is with you and that he loves you.  May he give you his strength and wisdom as you face your problem. May he fill you with his joy and peace."

We pray the blessing based on what we know about God's character and what he wants for his people, springing from what we read in the scriptures.

Blessings are important to God.  Jesus spoke a series of blessings called "the beatitudes" in his great sermon in Matthew 5.  He even urges us to bless those who persecute us.

The story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24 shows that there is power spiritually in speaking blessings and curses.

Balak, king of Moab, tries to get Balaam, a noted prophet, to call down a curse on the Israelites who are pouring into the region as they escape Egypt. Balak believes that a curse by the prophet will stop the Israelites and force them out.

But God stops Balaam from pronouncing a curse, saying that he has already blessed the Israelites.  In the end, Balaam bows before God and pronounces a blessing - not a curse - over the Israelites.

In our world, we may be unconsciously saying hurtful things about people, not realizing that there is a spiritual aspect to our words.  If we bless people, we can break the spiritual effect of negative words.

"Blessing is prophetic because it is able to see the way things should be, not the way they appear at the moment," says Kirkwood.

For me, that is an important insight. 

So, when I feel upset with someone, I must remember that God loves that person and wants the best for him or her.

God is asking me to offer a blessing, drawing on what God wants for his children.

If you are interested in more on blessing, Bill Gothard's Institute of Basic Life Principles gives helpful suggestions at https://iblp.org/questions/what-power-spoken-blessing.

Breaking bitter bonds

A decade ago, I realized I had never forgiven a boy who ridiculed me - a new kid - outside our grade 8 classroom with all the other boys watching.

Compared to what others have faced, it seems trivial to me now.  But it affected me for the rest of my high school days, causing me to withdraw from the other boys.

So, I decided to forgive him - and others - as part of a church study group on healing prayer.  Nothing spectacular happened, but it was important for me to jettison this bitter burden.

Forgiveness is hard, but unforgiveness can be crippling.  It can affect our spiritual lives and sometimes our physical and emotional lives.

Christ calls on us to forgive others, drawing a direct link between our relationship with God and our willingness to forgive (Matthew 6:14-15).  Failure to forgive does not mean we are separated from God, but I believe it means we have ourselves created an obstacle in our relationship with the Lord.

I have read stories of dramatic healings - emotional and physical - when people have forgiven others.  It can even transform families.

In her book When You Don't Know What To Pray, Linda Evans Shepherd tells how forgiveness brought a large family into the kingdom of God.

The family of 10 children suffered through violence and alcoholism as they grew up.

Then, one of them - Victoria - became a believer.  The rest ignored her spiritual change and she died from cancer not too long afterwards.  She deeply desired for the rest of her family to become followers of Christ.

A little later, one of her sisters - Marie - became a Christian and started praying for her parents and all of her brothers and sisters.  While she was praying, she would recall hurts she had suffered at the hands of these family members.

"Each time that happened, Marie asked God to help her forgive that hurt," Shepherd writes.

This took years.  As she prayed for each family member, she gradually forgave each for past hurts.

When she had finished this process, she invited the whole family to dinner at a restaurant.  She was surprised when all of them came.

Then, she invited them all to come to a church meeting where the preacher presented the good news of Jesus Christ.  All but one came that evening and committed their lives to Jesus.

Of course, there is no guarantee that forgiving someone will lead to such wonderful results.

But Jesus knew what he was talking about when he urged us to forgive.

When we forgive others, we are doing what God has done for us.

Do you exist?

A surefire way to find out whether God exists is to ask him, says Anthony DeStephano.

God is sure to answer "Yes" - in some way, says DeStephano, author of Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To.

Of course, you have to really want to know.  If you have already decided he doesn't exist, you'll probably miss his answer.

DeStephano wrote his book to assure us that we can be certain the Lord will say "Yes" to prayers that align with God's own wishes and plans.

He acknowledges that there are many prayers God says "No" to.

"Like a good father, he is not concerned about gratifying our every wish.  Instead, he is concerned about only one thing: our ultimate good, which boils down to whether or not we make it to heaven."

So every prayer we make is evaluated according to that long-term goal.  He says "yes or no based on what he knows will happen to us in the future as a result of that decision".

Yet we can be sure that God wants to say "Yes" to prayers that will lead to "certain spiritual favours and graces that are always good for us and that we need all the time".

One of these, of course, is faith.

We can spend a lot of time exploring arguments about God's existence, but that will not lead to faith.  Faith is a gift of God.

Faith in God - in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for us - is the stepping stone to a whole new life with boundless hope and possibility.  It answers questions like "What will happen after I die?" and "Why do I exist?"

Sometimes, too, believers have intellectual doubts and need confirmation that God is real.

Getting tied up in philosophical arguments about God's existence won't get us far.  That's because God is alive and all we have to do is ask him.  He will show us.

DeStephano says it's highly unlikely that he will suddenly appear before us and speak to us.  Although, he has sent angels supernaturally to speak to people in the Bible and even in modern times.

Instead, God is looking for us to trust him when he is invisible as a keystone to a growing faith.

"Very simply, God will give you a sign of his presence - a real, genuine, bona fide sign," the author writes. "The exact nature of this sign will be up to him, of course . . .  But you can be sure that it will be something out of the ordinary."

By "out of the ordinary", DeStephano says it may be profound or as simple as a conversation with someone that the Lord impresses on your heart as something from God.

Perhaps it is escaping a close call with death without a scratch.  Or, an unexpected solution to a problem that you could not have predicted.  Or, conquering a personal evil in your life.

"There will be a growing conviction in your mind and in your heart that there must have been some other force at work.  And more important, there will be a growing conviction of the presence of this force."

The Bible makes clear that prayer is important simply because God wants a close relationship with us.  He loves us and wants to help us.

We just have to ask the right questions and keep our eyes and ears open for the answers.

A lifestyle of praise

A visiting preacher at our church recently urged us to aim at spending 80 per cent of our prayer times in praising God.

For most of us, that's a daunting goal.

And many of us will also wonder: "What about my prayer requests?  Aren't they important?"

Yes, they are.  But perhaps God can deal with some of those prayer needs while we are exalting him.

Terry Law, author of The Power of Praise and Worship, says that he has found praising God has changed him and changed the lives of other people, too.  He declares that a "lifestyle of praise" is not only possible, but desirable.

Decades ago, Law's wife died in a traffic accident while he was out of the country touring with a Christian band called "Living Sound".  He was left with three young children and a bitter heart.

He was angry with God and decided he would give up his music career. But a talk with friend and mentor Oral Roberts ultimately changed his mind and his future.

Roberts, who had suffered loss in his own life, urged him to praise the Lord.  Law objected, but did as Roberts suggested.  He felt nothing as he praised God until a couple of hours later, he broke down in tears and felt an inner release.  He found himself rejoicing in the Lord.

He returned to leading the band, but with a new vigour and purpose.  His praise band toured eastern European Communist countries and huge crowds - many of them young people - turned out.  People were healed during the services and many became believers - even young Communists.

Law later moved into other areas of ministry, but continues to stress the importance of praising God. Law says that, along with changing our own outlook on life, praising God:

• Silences the evil one (Psalm 8:1-2);
• Lifts our spirits (Isaiah 61:3);
• Leads us into celebrating Christ's triumph over the dark forces through his death and resurrection (2 Corinthians 2:14);
• Prepares us for miracles (Psalm 50:23); and
• Brings revelation - or spiritual knowledge that we would not have otherwise (Psalm 22 speaks of Jesus' agonies on the cross hundreds of years before they happened).

As other writers note, praise need not be restricted to our regular prayer times.  We can praise God at any time of the day - at home, at work, in school, at play.

We can look up the various names for God in the Bible - the Lord as Creator, Almighty, Peace, Shepherd, Healer, Provider and more - using them as a launching pad to reflection and praise.

And something I have started doing is using simple objects in my everyday world to prompt thoughts of the Lord - who he is and what he has done for me.  For instance, standing in the shower in the morning reminds me that the Lord is pouring out his goodness and his love upon me.

Or, we can sit silently before him, adoring him and then speaking words of thanks and praise.

Praising God pleases the Lord and draws us closer to him.  And it renews us.

Praying for the nations

You can touch the world through prayer.  Do you believe that?

Prayer warrior and missionary leader Wesley Duewel believed it.

In his book Touch the World Through Prayer, Duewel writes that prayer is key to world evangelization.

"The task of world evangelization is primarily dependent on witness and prayer.  Prayer must prepare the way for evangelization.  Prayer must saturate and cover the work of evangelization."

Yet most of us - myself included - tend to put the world beyond our doors out of our minds.

Like many Christians, I pray mostly for myself, my family and my friends with a nod to the needs of our church and our city.  It's natural because I know those needs best.

But what about God's designs for this world?

Jesus spelled this out clearly in Matthew 28:19 where he told his followers: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

We call this "The Great Commission" - our mandate to go out and reach others for Jesus so that they will become fully devoted followers of Christ.

Jesus told us to pray for people to go out and harvest those who are ready right now to give their lives to the Lord.  Yet that is not top-of-mind in most of our churches.

I have prayed - and continue to pray - for friends who do not know Jesus.  Once in a while, I share something of my faith with them.

But Duewel has a wider vision.

"You can have a thrilling role in reaping God's harvest.  Only a small percentage of God's people are involved in seed-sowing, watering, cultivating, and preparing more harvesters, yet all of us could participate on a deeper level than we have ever dreamed.  If you are willing, prayer offers you a way to be significantly involved in world harvest."

Duewel says this does not absolve us of sharing Christ with others as opportunities arise.

But God works through prayer.  He responds to our prayers and his kingdom is advanced through prayer.

Duewel says we can pray for people who are involved in evangelism and he gives examples of people in other parts of the world who prayed for him daily.  As well, we can pray for God to move in places far from us in other parts of the world.  We can pray for people to believe in Jesus; for protection of young churches; and for God to influence world leaders to change their attitudes toward persecuted believers.

Lack of prayer for the world is a serious issue.

God says in Ezekiel 22 that he looked for someone to build the wall of righteousness in the land and stand in the gap for God's people.  But he found no one and was obliged to judge the people of God.

"Standing in the gap" is a metaphor for prayer on behalf of a people.

I have found some useful on-line guides to praying for other nations.

The organization 24-7 Prayer International has some suggestions on how we can pray for the world at https://www.24-7prayer.com/blog/2693/how-do-i-pray-for-the-world.

And Operation World has very useful background information on many nations including population, religious affiliation, Christian presence, and items for prayer.  This is available on-line at: www.operation world.org.

We have a great task before us.

The ordinary leads to the extraordinary

Ordinary, everyday objects can inspire and draw us nearer to God.

Decades ago, I attended a prayer seminar where the speaker asked us to look at our watches and use this object as a launching pad to prayer.

So, I did.  And it opened up my mind to God's greatness and his awesome qualities.

As I repeat this exercise now, my watch makes me think of "time".  God is beyond time.  The apostle Peter says in 2 Peter 3:8 that, for God, "a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day".

Like many others, I try to fit God into my conception of time.  I feel I have urgent needs which need to be met immediately.  But God's vision is greater than mine.  His answer to my prayer will come - but maybe not until much later, perhaps even after my death.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews notes in Hebrews 11 that many Old Testament believers died for their faith in God, expecting a future Messiah.  But they would be rewarded in time for their faith when Jesus died and rose again centuries later.

My watch reminds me, too, that my time on earth is limited and that every minute is precious.  I am here to worship God and love him and everyone I meet.

The fact that time does not bind God makes me realize how great God is.  He created time for us as human beings to work out his plan for our redemption.  We are made in the image of God, but we are not God.

All this is a good beginning for a prayer time worshiping the Lord and contemplating his majesty and greatness.

Ever since that prayer seminar, I have periodically used things I see to stimulate prayer.  I do this especially when I am out walking.  Nature provides a lot of inspiration for prayer.

For example, a tree in late autumn, stripped of its leaves, can remind me that God is the source of life.  The tree may be bare now, but the sap will flow in the spring and new growth sprout.  The same can happen to us in our lives.

I have returned to this practice more intently recently. 

It's something I can do anytime.

And it keeps my mind on God.

Reflective prayer

I believe that God is at work in every aspect of my life.

I just need to see what he is doing.

As I said last week, I have been pondering David's words in Psalm 68:19: "Praise the Lord; praise God our saviour!  For each day he carries us in his arms."

That tells me that God is so intimately in touch with my life that he is carrying me, even when I don't know it.

Now, I am reading and attempting an old prayer approach that quiets me and prepares me to reflect on what God is telling me about my everyday life.  He is speaking to me about the people I meet, the emotions I feel, the gifts God is giving me unawares.

The approach is called "The Examen" by the Jesuits.  It is practiced today by Christians across denominations - by evangelicals as well as Catholics.

It was developed by the founder of the Jesuits - St. Ignatius Loyola - centuries ago.

A central aspect of the examen is gratitude, although there are other facets as well.  Among them are confession, praying for our needs, and seeking God's guidance.

This fits well with the apostle Paul's words in Philippians 4:6: "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all that he has done."

Of course, my prayer times often include something of each of these features - from thankfulness to praying for my needs.  The difference is that the examen asks me to reflect on my day and the coming day, looking for God's hand in my encounters with other people and in daily activities.

As I think about it, this prayer practice promises to deepen my relationship with God as I ask him to open my eyes to what he is doing.

Here are the basic elements of "The Examen" taken from this web-site - https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen/how-can-i-pray:

• Become aware of God's presence: Invite the Holy Spirit to help you understand from his viewpoint what has happened to you during the day;
• Review the day with gratitude: For me, this is an important step.  One writer puts it this way: "Walk through your day in the presence of God and note its joys and delights."  I take for granted so much of what goes on around me, but these joys and delights are God's gifts to me;
• Pay attention to your emotions:  What feelings did you have during the day?  Were you anxious? Angry? Bored? Joyful? Confident?  That should lead to asking God what he is telling you about your emotions.  Is he asking you to correct mistakes or move in a new direction at work or home?  Or, is he pointing out a new path in your life?
• Choose one feature of the day and pray from it: Ask the Holy Spirit to point you to something that happened during that day that is particularly important to God.  It could even be something that seemed unimportant to you at the time.  Pray spontaneously in praise, gratitude, repentance or intercession; and
• Look toward tomorrow:  Ask God for insight into what is coming up tomorrow.  Ask him for help and understanding and pay attention to your feelings as you contemplate what is coming.  Tell the Lord about your thoughts in prayer.

As one writer put it: "Do all this in the spirit of gratitude.  Your life is a gift, and it is adorned with gifts from God."

Amen.

He carries us

It matters how we view God when we pray.

If we think he is unhappy with us, we pray tentatively.  We may feel he will ignore us because we have sinned or done something wrong.

If we feel loved by the Lord, we will pray with confidence and hope.

The good news of Jesus Christ makes clear that God is loving and merciful, ever ready to forgive us and give us good gifts.

I have come back several times recently to Psalm 68:19 where David writes: "Praise the Lord; praise God our saviour!  For each day he carries us in his arms."

What a picture of our loving God!  We may feel hopeless and helpless, but God is not letting us go.  He is carrying us through our troubles, even though we don't know it.

David responds to this truth with praise.  So should every follower of God.

I am struck by how often the psalms speak of God's lovingkindness - a lovingkindness that stretches forever.

One of the greatest expressions of his love for us is in Psalm 103:11,12 where David says:

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west has he removed our transgressions from us."

He goes on to say that the Lord has compassion on us as a father has compassion on his children.  He knows we are weak.

David often writes about God being his refuge and fortress in difficult times.  He even declares that we are like chicks sheltering under the protective wings of their mother.

God is for us - not against us.

The scriptures say that David was a man after God's own heart.  A major reason was that David acknowledged his sins and his weakness before God and humbly depended on the Lord to guide him.

The psalms are really a book of prayers.  The writers praise God and express their deepest feelings, opening themselves completely to the Lord.  Some of the psalms are vengeful, but so are we on occasion. 

God answers our prayers according to his own ways, not ours.  We can be confident that his answers are always best for us.

We can count on him to carry us every day.

Psalm 23: Springboard to prayer

I love Psalm 23 as a springboard to prayer.

I find myself returning to it repeatedly.

Many other prayer warriors speak of this psalm as an inspiration in prayer.

A couple of nights ago, I was thinking again about the opening words of the psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd."

I focused on the first two words: "The Lord . . ."  There is so much to meditate on in these words that you can spend an entire prayer time pondering them.

As I was thinking about these words, I pictured the Lord in heaven in the apostle John's magnificent description in Revelation 1 and Revelation 5.

In Revelation 1, the picture of Jesus is stunning - and frightening.  He is glorious and his eyes are like flames of fire and his face gleams like the sun.  And it seems as if a sword is coming from his mouth - perhaps a sign of his power to judge.

Quite rightly, John reacts by collapsing in front of him.

But Jesus demonstrates his love and grace by touching him and telling him not to be afraid.  And he tells him to record the vision.  This suggests to me a sign of Jesus' love for us - he wants us to know what is coming ahead of time so that we can prepare spiritually for the end times.

For me, this is awe-inspiring.  Our God is a great God, a just God and a mighty God.  He is not to be trifled with.

Later in Revelation 5, we get a very different picture of Jesus.  A scroll is presented and a mighty angel shouts: "Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?"

John is devastated because no one steps forward - until he sees a lamb "looking as if it had been slain".  The lamb takes the scroll and those around him fall before him and praise him in song.

This brings forward the sacrifice of Jesus for us as believers.   He loved us enough to die for us.  He is both almighty and self-giving.

These word pictures of Jesus are a launching pad for praise and worship.

When I think of those words "the Lord",  I could also contemplate other  qualities of God - creator, redeemer, healer, provider.

Indeed, the remaining words of Psalm 23:1 speak of the Lord as our shepherd.  That itself is enough for more praise.

As Donald S. Whitney says in Praying the Bible, we can use phrases from Bible passages such as the Psalms to trigger praise and requests.  The Bible becomes a book of prayer and praise.

Our prayer lives need never run dry.

Changed by praising God

Praising God regularly and often can change us.

And sometimes, a life of praise can change our circumstances.

Cindy Jacobs mentions in her book The Power of Persistent Prayer that many years ago her husband lost his job at Trans World Airlines and, despite great effort, he couldn't find another.

They were driving home to Los Angeles from Arizona feeling discouraged when she began speaking words of praise to the Lord.  Her husband Mike picked up this idea and began singing songs of praise.

Before long, they were praising the Lord with full hearts.  When one began getting tired, the other would step in and take over.  They continued praising God all the way to Los Angeles.

The experience changed their outlook on their circumstances.  And soon after, Mike Jacobs found a job.

That reminds me again of the story in Acts 16 of the apostle Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail.  They had beaten and thrown into the jail for preaching Jesus Christ.

Instead of cursing their jailers, they began praying and singing songs of praise to the Lord.  There was an earthquake, their fetters were broken, and they were in a position to break free.  Instead, they stayed and led the awestruck jailer and his family to faith in Christ.

Paul urges us to live a life of praise and thanksgiving.  In Philippians 4:6, he says: "Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done."

And in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 he says: "Be thankful in all circumstances for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus."

Such a life is not normal.  I admit I am not a good example of being thankful and praising God in all circumstances.  But when I do, my heart lightens.

Leanne Payne, author of Listening Prayer, suggests we should make a concentrated effort to praise the Lord, making it a habit.

She keeps a list of praise scriptures which she reads frequently, meditating upon them.  She spends time going deeper into her readings about Jesus to soak in his presence.

She notes that Paul says in Romans 13:14 that we are to "clothe" ourselves with Jesus Christ.  That is an action we must take.

In Colossians 3, the apostle goes further, outlining how we are to do it - putting on humility and compassion and other virtues.  This is not to appear better than we are - it is to rely on Christ to bring about these changes within us as we step out in faith, believing that Christ is doing this through us.

There are many stories like Cindy Jacobs' account of the drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles.  People are healed emotionally - and sometimes physically - as they praise God.

As Psalm 22:3 suggests, God makes his presence felt when we turn to him in praise.

Disappointment: An obstacle to prayer

Disappointment in God can be an obstacle to prayer.

The best antidote is to take this to God and release it.

That's what Cindy Jacobs recommends - and she speaks from experience.

Many years ago, she was going through a difficult time in prayer - she wasn't sure that God wanted to answer her prayers.  Unconsciously, she was questioning the goodness of God.

"It's critical when we are struggling in such a way that we stop and allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate any faulty or negative thinking, and surrender emotions that might keep us from praying in faith," says Jacob in her book The Power of Persistent Prayer.

After struggling in prayer for a while, she asked God what was wrong.

She felt he was telling her that she was angry with him.

"I came to realize that my anger flowed out of deep disappointments in my past," she writes.  "Quite simply, I had expected certain things to go a certain direction in my life, and that had not happened."

She asked God to reveal to her what those disappointments were.  Some of them were caused by her, some by others.  And some were dreams that were never fulfilled.

She made a list and prayed over them, sometimes grieving.

One of her toughest issues was her father's death at the age of 49, a week before her wedding.  He was a pastor and she had longed for him to perform the service.

After giving up these hurts to the Lord, "full trust in my heavenly Father was restored". 

"This led to a level of confidence to my prayer life that was not there before," she says.

"This point leads to a critical factor in our intercessory walk with God.  If we do not believe that God is good, then we can't pray in faith expecting Him to do good things for us through answers to our prayers."

She suggests the following approach to restoring our relationships with God:

• Spend time meditating on scripture and ask the Holy Spirit to show you any unhealed areas where losses or unfulfilled expectations have affected your thinking;
• Make a list of the things the Lord shows you; and
• Set aside an uninterrupted time of prayer - even a day or more - making this a top priority.

One thing I'm learning is that what I want may not be what God wants for me.  He knows better than I do what is good for me.

I believe God is good, no matter what happens around me.

We are not alone

When we pray, we are not alone.

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are all involved.  And even the angels have a hand, carrying out God's will for us.

Sometimes, we feel ignored by God and by everyone else.  But we are wrong.

We know from scripture that Holy Spirit is constantly praying for us.  The apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:26: "We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."

The Spirit prays for or deepest needs, needs that we might not even be aware of.

The Bible also tells us that Jesus speaks for us in heaven.  He intercedes for us before the Father to assure him that he died for our sins (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25, 1 John 2:1,2).

And the apostle John informs us that if we pray according to God's will, the Father will grant our request (1 John 5:14,15).

So, what am I to make of unanswered prayer?

First of all, I can be confident that God is not withholding something good from me.  He wants to give us good things.

Jesus says in Matthew 7:11: "If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him."

That suggests to me that God does not give us things that he knows would be bad for us - even though we think they are good.

Secondly, God may give us answers to our prayers - but not until much later, even after our deaths.

We read in the Book of Revelation that prayers of believers are saved up in heaven and will be answered at a time of God's choosing in the last days of the world as we know it (Revelation 5 and Revelation 15).

No, I cannot say that God has turned away from me or has gone on vacation because he has not given me what I want. 

I admit it's hard to believe that when I,  or my family and friends, are going through hard times.

Yet David declares unforgettably in Psalm 139:

"Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast."

Yes, God's eyes are always on me and his ears always open to my voice.

Cop-out? Or not?

Is it a cop-out to tag "if it by your will, Lord?" onto the end of your prayers?

Some prayer warriors would argue that it is.  They would say you aren't very confident God will say "Yes" to your prayers.  And there isn't much chance that God will answer positively.

Yet, scripture clearly teaches that we can only count on God saying "Yes" if our prayers are according to his will.

The apostle John writes in 1 John 5:14-15:

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."

Still, I understand why some pray-ers would say that it sounds as if we aren't sure God will like our prayers  by throwing the words "if it is your will" in front of them.

So, the key to me is to pray and search the scriptures to discover God's will in matters that really concern us.  Then, we can pray boldly.

I need to do this consistently myself.

The great prayer warrior George Muller took this approach in the many years he ran orphanages in England without once begging for funds from other people.

He would take to God the issues he was grappling with.  He would ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate his mind as he read the Bible looking for scriptures that applied to his prayer concern.

He would also talk with mature believers whose opinions he respected.

Then, when he discovered scriptures that indicated God's will on a particular problem, he would pray them.  Those scriptures, the confirmation of the Spirit, and the agreement of mature believers all combined to give him assurance that God would say "Yes" to his request.

The results were many miraculous answers to prayer.  In the early years, the orphanages did not have enough food to feed the children as the day began, but anonymous funds would arrive in the mail to cover the exact amount needed to pay for the day's groceries.

Cleddie Keith, pastor and author of Praying the Lord's Prayer, adds another important point: "Real prayer is something God puts in your heart as a desire first."

He points to the psalmist David's great words in Psalm 37:4: "Delight yourself in the Lord; and he will give you the desires of your heart."

"When I truly delight myself in the Lord, the desires that begin to form in my spirit are a gift from God."

Keith, who was then a youth pastor in Houston, Texas, and his senior pastor prayed together for God's kingdom to come to a poverty-stricken and crime-ridden sector of the city decades ago.

"When I prayed for His kingdom to come, He gave me his desires," Keith writes.

He says we should check whether our prayers are more about our own desires than God's.

After fervent prayer, Keith approached the principal of a local school to ask if he could conduct an assembly with the student body. To his surprise, the principal, a professed agnostic, agreed to a 30-minute assembly.

He brought in a Christian band which happened to be touring at the time and they played and sang Christian songs that the kids understood.

A young girl ran down to the front of the auditorium and pleaded with Keith for help.  No invitation had been given.

"God broke through, and for the next forty-five days heaven came down into the hearts of young-people in that inner-city public school in Houston, Texas.  We had prayer every morning before class.  The students and teachers met in the lunchroom and prayed earnestly for the student body."

Over 30 years later, he returned to Houston for special services and a young woman approached him who became a believer as a student at that time.  She was active in her congregation and free of drugs that had afflicted her before her conversion at that school.

God will act when our prayers are in tune with his desires.

Praying God's words

When God speaks, things happen.

He spoke the universe into being and Jesus' words changed hearts, foiled Satan, healed people.

Now, many prayer warriors use God's words - his promises and commitments - as they pray for themselves and others around them.

I have been reflecting on this and I believe that declaring God's word is powerful.  Of course, any effective prayer must be according to God's will (1 John 5:14-15).

Kyle Winkler, author of Activating the Power of God's Word, says the Lord's word is "a signature inked in heaven that cannot be annulled but is supernaturally binding and everlasting".

"When God speaks, His Words contain the authority of His majesty, which all creation obeys."

Winkler notes that God has delegated to us the authority to use his words for his purposes.  For instance, the apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:17 that we are to use the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God" in dealing with dark forces active in this world.

"You and I are able to give voice to God's Word so that when we speak it, it maintains God's authority as if He has spoken it Himself," the author says.

Winkler says that he was "excessively shy" as a child and felt "alone, timid, rejected and not good enough".  Satan exploits such feelings in believers, stealing their joy and confidence.

Then, he learned about his "new identity" as a believer - a new person who is loved unconditionally.  Jesus had become Winkler's righteousness.

"Who you are in Christ is made up of the qualities of His image that you get to call your own, simply because of His effort and striving at the cross.  It is the result of His finished work, not yours."

Winkler discusses Satan's effort to derail Jesus by tempting him in the wilderness after he was baptized in the Jordan River.  In each of Satan's attempts, Jesus responded by quoting God's word until the Devil gave up and left (Matthew 4).

"Paul said that we shut down Satan's mind games by taking negative thoughts captive to God's Word," he writes.  "In other words, if Satan says 'You are worthless', replace that thought with the truth of God's Word . . ."

He suggests several steps to transforming our thinking - begin with the correct truths from scripture; declare the truths aloud; act upon this truth;  and return to this truth whenever we fail until it becomes a habit.  Then, our character will change.

Winkler says he changed as he applied scripture to his life.  His growth "depended on a consistent, daily habit of speaking God's Word, not an occasional emergency dose".

As Jesus told Satan when he was tempted in the wilderness:

"It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Praying through pain

Susie Larson found hope as she and her husband prayed through a crushing load of family crises, piling up in just six months.

She offers some valuable lessons in persevering prayer as she tells her story in her book Your Powerful Prayers: Reaching the Heart of God with a Bold and Humble Faith.

During that six-month period, her son's marriage broke up, a niece had a life-threatening tubing accident, doctors discovered 30 cancerous tumours in her brother's bladder, another brother's son was admitted to hospital with ulcerative colitis, and finally her brother-in-law was rushed to hospital with inoperable cancer in his stomach.

All this happened just after Larson and her husband jointly launched a special prayer effort, calling on God to act powerfully in six areas of their lives - their children, their extended family, their community, the persecuted, their ministry and their finances.

Many people would be so shaken by the series of family problems that prayer would take a back seat.  But not Susie Larson and her husband.

"Though I went to work every day to do my live talk show, I always felt on the verge of tears, as my heart grieved over so many things," Larson says.  "And yet, as Kev and I worked our way through our prayer list every day and every night, we felt more grounded in Christ than ever."

There came a time when Larson was so broken-hearted during this period that she put herself "in a Jesus-eclipse".

"I took my weary self and drew ever closer to Jesus.  I scooted up so close to him that my only heart's cry was for more of him in me.  I knew I couldn't manage all that weighed so heavily on me, so I gave him every shred of it.  I gave him the deep burdens that plagued our family."

She did the same with the problems of her ministry.  In essence, "I stopped praying about everything and anything except him".

But there was one more stage in this prayer journey.

She interviewed singer-songwriter Wintley Phipps who told her of chance encounters he had which turned out to be designed by God to impact lives for Jesus.

"Nothing happens by chance," Phipps told Larson, "and if we make ourselves available to the Lord, he'll open doors and connect us with people we would never otherwise meet.  He wants to open doors and provide opportunities to use us for his grand purpose."

God wants us to be transformed into the image of Christ, Phipps said. And he uses these opportunities to help us on the way.

So Larson realized that "it was time for me to get back in the game".  She needed to go beyond seeking Jesus' protection to walking the path he had chosen for her.

The author says she believes God is good and that we will find out in eternity all the answers to the questions that puzzle us now.

But already she has seen what God is doing in her family. 

Her son Jordan is becoming the man of God she and her husband prayed he would be and "quite a number of our nieces and nephews have engaged their faith on a deeper level".

One nephew sent her a text message: "Hey, Auntie Susie, this is your favourite nephew.  I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to trust God with my life.  I got down on my knees at work and surrendered my life to Christ.  I just wanted you to know."

"As a family, we are clinging to God's promises on a whole new level," Larson writes.  "And guess what? We're. Still. Standing."

The lesson I take from this for myself and for anyone overcome with sadness or worry?  Hang in there! 

God will work some good out of the hardest circumstances.

"Faithless" prayers matter

Don't discount so-called "faithless" prayers.  They matter.

It's true that Jesus wants the faith of his followers to grow.  It's true that he places great emphasis on faith.

But that doesn't mean that God doesn't hear and answer prayers where faith is weak.

A case in point is John Wimber's experience at the outset of his renowned healing prayer ministry.

He had launched a healing prayer ministry at his California church and for 10 months he and others prayed unsuccessfully for healing of people with illnesses.  In his book Power Healing, he writes that he and other members of the prayer team became deeply discouraged.

Finally, he cried out to God: "You tell us to believe in healing and pray for healing, but you're not doing anything.  It's not fair!"

The very next morning, a member of his congregation asked him to rush over and pray for his sick wife.  He arrived at the house and groaned inwardly when he saw the man's wife.  She had a bad fever and her face was red and swollen.

"I walked over to her and laid hands on her, mumbled a faithless prayer," he writes, "and then I turned around and began explaining to her husband why some people do not get healed - a talk that I had perfected during the previous 10 months."

Then, he noticed the husband was grinning.  He whirled around to see the woman out of bed.

Astonished, he asked her what happened and she replied: "I'm well. You healed me.  Would you like to stay for some coffee or breakfast?"

It turned out to be the first step in a world-wide healing prayer ministry.

Wimber's experience teaches me that God is willing to act if we are willing to turn to him in humble submission.  In fact, Wimber's prayer was not exactly "faithless".  He had enough faith in God to turn to him once again despite many failures in healing prayer.

I realize that it is impossible to understand everything about prayer and why one prayer is answered "Yes" and another is not.

I am encouraged by the passage in Mark 9 where a father asks Jesus to heal his son of a deaf and mute spirit.  The spirit had caused his son to have a seizure and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth.

The father asks Jesus to take pity on him and his son if he can do anything.

Jesus replies: "'If you can?'  Everything is possible for one who believes."

The father declares: "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

And then Jesus heals the boy.

I believe Jesus answered the father's request for a strengthened faith.

 But even a teensy-weensy bit of faith may be enough to see a wonderful answer from the Lord.

So, we must never stop praying.

God's prayer army

Sometimes, I like to think of Christians as God's prayer army on earth.

An army protects the people and invades enemy territory.

In the same sense, Christian prayer warriors call on God to advance his kingdom by bringing people to faith in Christ.  And they battle to fight off Satan's attempts to afflict and destroy believers and the church.

Christ commissioned us to preach the good news and make disciples of people in all nations (Matthew 28:18-20).  That is advancing God's kingdom in enemy territory.  Prayer plays a major role in that effort.

As well, the apostle John tells us in 1 John 3:8 that "the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil".  Satan was defeated when Jesus died for our sins on the cross and rose again.  But the devil remains active and works to undermine Christians physically and spiritually.

Here, prayer is vital in protecting believers, bringing healing from physical and spiritual wounds, and denying Satan a foothold in our lives.

The apostle Paul makes clear in Ephesians 6 that our real enemies as believers are unseen dark powers under the authority of Satan (Ephesians 6:12).  He urges us to put on spiritual armour such as the Word of God and to "pray in the Spirit at all times and in every occasion" to fight demonic attacks.

While Jesus was on earth, he cast out demons, healed people, and preached the gospel.  He spent long hours in prayer before going out among the crowds to speak and bring healing.

In my eyes, the commander of this prayer army is God.  He sets out the plan of attack and defence and assigns us as his soldiers to our specific tasks.

Our duty as individual warriors is to listen to God and follow his directions.  Some may be called to leadership roles, identifying targets given them by the Lord and leading groups in prayer to achieve those ends.

All armies need trained soldiers.  So, some prayer warriors can be tasked to train others in the great calling of prayer.

And every believer must remember that battles are won when warriors look out for each other.  When we see fellow believers are suffering, we must come to their aid - in prayer and in other ways.

This picture of an army of God helps me visualize the much bigger picture of God's eternal plan.

I may be just one person in one city.  But I am part of a great army of believing prayer warriors around the world, praying that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Satan cannot stop God's children if we take up our prayer assignments - and pray.

Never give up

We must never stop praying for our country.

It's easy to get discouraged from praying for our country when we look around us.  Society in the West seems to be going from bad to worse. 

Yet that's probably the best time to pray. God has moved with power when the outlook is dark.

The Bible makes clear that God wants us to pray for our people.  And he will answer.

His answers don't always come in our timeframe.  But they do come.

The children of Israel suffered 400 years in slavery in Egypt before God intervened to free them (Acts 7).  I'm sure many despaired of freedom and stopped praying with faith in that long period.  Yet many others did pray.

Even Moses was surprised when God spoke from a burning bush in the wilderness of Midian and announced: "I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt.  I have heard their cries of distress because of their harsh slave drivers."  (Exodus 3)

Then, the Lord nominated Moses to lead the people to freedom.  It was a task Moses felt was impossible, but he reluctantly took a faith step to obey God.  And he began a time of prayerful reliance on God that achieved the impossible.

On the other hand, God intervened immediately and miraculously in 2 Chronicles 20 when the vast armies of Moab threatened to overrun the people of Judah.  After King Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah prayed for help, the Lord threw the enemy into confusion and defeat when the army of Judah marched out praising God.  God's people won without striking a blow.

The story of the Israelites in the Old Testament is sprinkled with times when God's people were overcome by enemies and later rebounded when they turned back to the Lord.

So bad times can lead to good - if God's people pray.

God pointed out to Solomon in a vision in 2 Chronicles 7 that he would heal the land of Israel if his people turned back to the Lord after rejecting him for a period of time.  In verse 14, he says the Israelites must humble themselves, repent and pray as steps to restoration.

Repentance means turning back to the Lord and away from the sin of rejecting God.

The history of the Israelites after Solomon's reign underscores the truth of that promise.

Indeed, modern Christian history also demonstrates this truth.  The Wesleyan revival in Britain broke out when conditions in that country were as seriously wrong as they were in France in the mid-1700s.  Prayer and turning back to God changed the course of British history while France descended into revolution.

In Luke 18, Luke records Jesus' parable of the persistent widow who plagued the unjust judge until she obtained the justice she sought.  Luke says the reason he told this story to his disciples is that "they should always pray and never give up".

Good advice for us, too.

Always a chance

Keep praying for that impossible man or woman who seems like a lost cause.

In Charles Spurgeon's eyes, no one is beyond the grace and mercy of God.

Spurgeon, a great 19th century British Baptist preacher, offers an encounter between God and Moses as evidence that we should never believe there are really hopeless cases.

You may recall God's reaction to Moses' brother Aaron making a golden calf for the wandering Israelites to worship.  The Lord was furious and threatened to destroy them all and to start a new nation under Moses (Exodus 32).

But Moses pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his people.

Moses suggested the Egyptians would declare God called the Israelites out into the wilderness to destroy them.  The Israelite leader then appealed to the Lord to "turn away from your fierce anger".

He added: "Turn away from this terrible disaster you have threatened against your people."

He reminded God that he had made a binding agreement with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to make his people as numerous as the stars.

And God relented.  There was punishment but the nation was not utterly destroyed.

It appeared to the Israelites that God had changed his mind.   But this may have been a test for Moses.

If so, Moses passed the test with flying colours.  He appealed to the merciful heart of God.

Moses already had an extremely close relationship with the Lord.  He spent hours in prayer with the Lord and obeyed him without reserve.

Except he could not let the threat to the Israelites go by without objecting.

God listened to Moses and he will listen to us if we pray wholeheartedly for people who are far from the Lord.

Such powerful prayer begins with spending a regular time in prayer with God, says Spurgeon.  We can't pray mountain-moving prayer without getting to know our Lord intimately.

This doesn't mean excusing the sin or the sinner - Moses did not excuse Aaron and the Israelites for making the golden calf as a god to worship.

However, no sin is too great to shut out God's mercy.

A couple of centuries ago, John Newton, a slave trader in Africa, became a believer in Christ and turned his life around.  His hymn "Amazing Grace" speaks of his change of heart and the power of God's forgiveness.

"Never let your indignation against sin prevent your prayers for sinners!" says Spurgeon.

He continues: "O you who love the Lord, give him no rest until he saves men."

Spurgeon says Moses could find nothing good in the people who had rejected God to bring before the Lord.  So, he turned his attention to God himself and his nature.  He noted that the Israelites were God's people - not Moses'.

In the same way, we can pray for people asking God not to let his creatures perish.

And, just as Moses pointed out God's covenant - or agreement - with the Israelite patriarchs in the past, so we can bring before the Lord his promises to us in the scriptures.

Finally, Moses told God that he could not go forward without his people. Spurgeon remarks "we never prevail in prayer so much as when we seem to link ourselves with the people for whom we pray".

"When you can pray like that, when you put yourself side by side with the soul for which you are pleading, you will succeed."

So, we must not give up praying for people who seem like hard cases - impossibly far from God.

The reward for answers to these prayers is overwhelming joy in our hearts - and in the heart of God.

What's in a name?

What's in a name?  A lot, when you're speaking about God.

The scriptures are dotted with different names for God, each one describing a separate characteristic.

Learning these names - and praying them - can build our faith as believers and bring hope and consolation in time of need.

We can only know God if we seek to know his character - what he is like.  The names of God in the Bible are intimately connected with what he said and did in the lives of real people in real life.

David Wilkerson says he wrote his book Knowing God by Name: Names of God that bring Healing and Hope after discovering "that God revealed these names to his people only as they needed them - in their moments of deepest crisis".

"It dawned on me that this is how I want to learn my Lord's nature also: to understand his heart in our most desperate times."

He adds: "Scripture makes it abundantly clear that, because of our commitment to the Lord, we are going to be put through the fire of testing.  That is the very reason God revealed his names to his people in the first place: to bring them encouragement, hope and life."

I can think of some examples off the top of my head. 

For instance, the name Jehovah-Jireh means "God will provide, our provider".  It pops up in the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son Isaac until God stops him at the last minute, providing a nearby goat caught in a thicket as a sacrifice in place of the young son (Genesis 22).

Abraham passed a major test of faith and God showed he would provide for those who remain faithful to their Lord.

Abraham learned another name for God when the Lord delivered enemies of him and his family into his hand in a memorable battle after his nephew Lot had been carried off by marauders in Genesis 14.  Melchizedek, king of Salem and "priest of God Most High", blessed Abraham and "El Elyon", which means "God Most High, creator and possessor of heaven and earth".

As Wilkerson writes, Melchizedek was telling Abraham that God is the creator of the entire universe and everything in it belongs to him - "he is in control of everything".  God had delivered Abram and his family - he had a plan for Abram and would carry it through.

Reflecting and meditating on the names of God can draw us closer to the Lord.  They take our minds away from our frustrations or personal agonies and remind us who loves us most - God Almighty.

I have kept a list of God's names on my desk for years and I refer to them from time to time in prayer and meditation.  They help me in worship and, as Wilkerson suggests, they give me hope.

Sometimes, I think of these names and their meaning as I prepare to sleep at night.

That is a well-trodden path.

The psalmist King David said in Psalm 63:6:

"I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night."

An unexpected answer to prayer

Richard Wurmbrand felt an unaccountable desire to visit a certain village in Romania.

He went and it was a visit that would change his life.

He had had a tough upbringing and rejected religion.

He was a Jew by birth but had become a convinced atheist.  Still, one day, he prayed to God and said that if the Lord was real, he had to prove it to young Wurmbrand.

At the same time, an old carpenter in a village high up in the mountains prayed to God, saying that he was old and sick but he did not want to die before seeing a Jew become a believer in Jesus because Jesus was a Jew.  He asked that God bring a Jew to his village and he would do his best to bring him to Christ.

In his book Tortured for Christ, Wurmband writes "something irresistible drew me to that village", one of 12,000 in Romania.

He met the carpenter who saw in Wurmbrand the answer to his prayer.  He gave the young man a Bible.

"As he told me some time later," says Wurmbrand, "he and his wife prayed for hours for my conversion and that of my wife."

"The Bible he gave me was written not so much in words, but in flames of love fired by his prayers.  I could barely read it.  I could only weep over it, comparing my bad life with the life of Jesus; my impurity with his righteousness; my hatred with his love - and he (Jesus) accepted me as one of his own."

Shortly after, Wurmbrand's wife became a believer.  They reached out to others and before long there was a new Lutheran church in Romania.

Wurmbrand and his wife later became part of the underground church in Romania during the Nazi occupation and later the Communist takeover.  He spent 14 years in a Communist prison suffering terribly for his faith.  Many Russians became believers as a result of his testimony.

When the young atheist prayed, he got an unexpected answer.  When the old carpenter prayed, he did not know how God would answer, but his faith was strong.

"The prayer of faith links man's petition to the power of God," writes Samuel Chadwick in The Path of Prayer.  "All men believe in the power of prayer to influence mind, develop character, and sanctify motive and will - but that is not all.  Prayer is force.  Prayer changes things."

Yes.  Prayer changes things.

Leaping barriers to listening prayer

Barriers often pop up when we try to listen to God.

Rusty Rustenbach, author of A Guide for Listening and Inner Healing Prayer, says he takes a number of steps to prepare for hearing what God wants to tell him.

One is to "exercise the authority of Christ over all the other voices that seek to speak to you".

Satan is active in trying to distract us.  But the apostle James tells us in James 4:7 that we are to submit ourselves to God and "resist the devil and he will flee from you".

Rustenbach prays out loud: "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command any voice other than God from speaking or interfering with this time."  This speaks to Satan because, unlike God, he cannot read our minds.

Another step is to "ask Jesus to come in a very special way and manifest his presence".

As Rustenbach says, the Bible is filled with requests to God to make his presence known.  God is ready to manifest his presence in special ways when we ask.

Rustenbach prays: "Come, Lord Jesus, come. Come Father God, come.  Come, Holy Spirit, come. Transform me into your likeness."

A further step is to "ask Jesus to search your heart and bring up anything that needs his healing touch".

Rustenbach prays along these lines: "Father God . . . would you search below the surface of my life to bring up any hurtful way that might be hidden there?  Would you also take me to the root of things?  Only bring up what would be beneficial for my healing and appropriate for this time."

Then, says Rustenbach, ask Jesus to communicate with you.

He suggests words like this: "Jesus would you be pleased to communicate with me during this time? I am listening to you and you alone."

Finally, listen and write down the thoughts that God gives you.

"After you have prayed through the preceding steps, the thoughts that come to you are usually God's communication to you," writes Rustenbach.

This approach seems to me like cleaning out a clogged drain that is blocking the flow of water - or, in this case, the words of God.

It makes sense to me.

Expectancy

Susie Larson says "we set ourselves up for disappointment" if we pray to God expecting him to respond exactly as we plan.

"This puts undue pressure on the relationship in a way that's unfair and unsustainable," she writes in her book Your Powerful Prayers: Reaching the Heart of God with a Bold and Humble Faith.

Instead, we should pray with "expectancy" - something quite different from demanding that God meet our expectations precisely as we wish.

"When we dictate to God and then we're surprised when he doesn't jump through our hoops, we eventually lose heart," Larson says.

 But, if we pray with "expectancy that something divine just might happen", we may well see God surpass our expectations.

"To live with expectancy is to live with an ear bent toward heaven.  It's to repeatedly look above our circumstances, knowing that God is involved in our everyday lives."

She adds: "The expectant heart passionately believes that any day now, God just might break through."

As we pray, we should "give God time and space to work out his plans for us with the understanding that there's always a mystery to following God".

"He's a miracle-working God," she says, "and he often breaks through in ways that we couldn't have imagined and at a time we least expect him to."

It's not that we expect too much from God - in fact, we often expect too little.  "Our idea of what breakthrough looks like frequently falls short of what God has in mind for us."

"His breakthroughs always bear fruit, always bless others (not just us) and always accomplish his purposes on earth."

To pray expectantly, she says we must believe that God is at work on earth; that he keeps his promises; that he's the same yesterday, today and forever; that he's not a respecter of people, but of faith; that he draws near to those who are humble and worship him; that nothing is too difficult for him; and that it's impossible for him to fail us.

In my mind, the prophet Daniel is a man who prayed expectantly. 

As a Jewish captive in the Babylonian court, he was selected for execution with other Babylonian wise men for being unable to figure out the nightmare dreamed by the Babylonian king.  He took the problem to God who let him know what the dream was about and he and the other wise men were saved.

This was one of a string of amazing answers to prayer that Daniel received from God in his lifetime.  He trusted God to answer his questions without trying impose his own wishes.  He expected to receive an answer and God responded.

I like that thought - pray expectantly!

The value of journaling

One way to hear God is to ask him questions and write out what you believe he is telling you in your mind.

Mark Virkler, co-author with his wife Patti of 4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice, says it has profoundly changed his prayer time and his life.

He acknowledges that there are risks involved.  You can allow wishful thinking to intrude.  Or, you can attribute to God things that are clearly wrong according to the Bible.

Virkler is careful to check what he believes he hears from God with other mature Christians and the Bible.  This is especially important where major life decisions are involved.

I have been following the Virklers' approach for almost a decade.  For me, it has been a great help.

Mark Virkler says that years ago he was inspired by reading Habakkuk 2:1-3 to try this form of journaling.

Habakkuk says: "I will keep watch to see what (he) God will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved."  Then God tells him to record the vision he receives and "inscribe it on tablets" so that others may read it.

Out of this, Virkler developed this method:

• Stillness: Quiet yourself so you can hear God's voice;
• Vision: Look for vision as you pray;
• Spontaneity: Recognize God's thoughts that light upon your mind; and
• Journaling: Write down the flow of thoughts and pictures that light upon your mind.

When Virkler refers to "vision", he means keeping your eyes on Jesus to see what he is telling you.

"Focusing the eyes of our hearts upon God causes us to become inwardly still, raises our level of faith and expectancy, and makes us fully open to receive from God."

Virkler says that "these elements have transformed my devotional life".  He adds: "Now I find that I can enjoy dialoguing with God by the hour and leave fully charged with his life and love."

Listening to God in this way has highlighted some of his weaknesses as well as the Lord's love for him.  Virkler says God pointed out to him that he was obsessed with rules and a legalistic approach and urged him to adopt a life of mercy and love towards others.

As for me, it has helped me to look at others the way God sees them rather than through my own petty feelings.  Sometimes that means God gently reproving me.

A benefit for everyone is to realize how forgiving and loving and encouraging God is.

Joy in the darkness

Habakkuk, a prophet of God, found joy in the midst of darkness.

His prayer encounter with God tells me something about hope in troubled times.

His story in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk is mostly filled with gloom.

The book is only three chapters long and most of it is about God's coming judgement on his people Israel.  But the book concludes with a song of hope.

The book opens with Habakkuk's complaint to God about the lawlessness of the society he is living in.  He accuses the Lord of not listening to his cries for help and justice.

I find this refreshing.  The prophet is human and he expresses his human anxieties and frustrations.  As praying people, we are to be authentic, too.  God knows how we feel.

God's answer shocks Habakkuk.  The Lord tells the prophet that he is raising up the Babylonians to punish the wayward Israelites.  They will invade and conquer and destroy.

Habakkuk protests - but carefully.  He recognizes that God cannot stand wickedness - "your eyes are too pure to contemplate evil".

But,  he adds: "Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?"

Is Babylon going to be allowed to destroy nations without mercy?

There are times when we, too, question why unjust people are permitted to exploit others - especially, if they are exploiting us.  We can't understand why we are suffering while bad people thrive.

Then, the Lord replies with a powerful message.

In effect, God says the unjust will not get away with murder.  In time, they will face their comeuppance.  They will be judged.

Far more important, "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea".

God is telling Habakkuk - and me - that whatever troubles we are going through, a time is coming when God's glory will flood the world around us.  All things will become new.

The prophet responds with a song that I love:

"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights."

Habakkuk's words suggest that he is looking beyond the horrors of the day to what God has in store for all people who believe in him. 

Above all, he trusts in - and loves - his great God.  God will carry him through the coming trials.

As Christians, our hope is in God who loves us and cares for us and who will celebrate when we join him in heaven some day.

A bigger vision

Followers of Christ need a bigger vision of what church is all about, says Dutch Sheets.

Sheets, author of Authority in Prayer: Praying with Power and Purpose, says the Bible views the church as more than a collection of individuals, caring for each other.

He declares that the church has been given authority to spread God's kingdom throughout the world and in every aspect of life.  And prayer is a key instrument in achieving this goal.

Most believers recall Jesus' words in Matthew 28: 18-20: "I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you."

But most of us - myself included - have put this "Great Commission" on the back burner.  Mentally, we have turned this over to a few gifted evangelists or missionaries.

Instead, we have focused on ourselves, trying to build strong communities of local believers.  That is indeed a vital part of being the church.  However, that is only one aspect of what God wants.

Sheets says that in the original Greek of the New Testament, the word "ekklesia" which has been translated "church" is an "assembly of people set apart to govern the affairs of a state or nation - in essence a parliament or congress".

"When Jesus said he would build his church, he was without question speaking of a body of people that would legislate spiritually for him, extending his kingdom government (rule) over the earth," writes Sheets.

As prayer warriors, followers of Christ work with God to extend the kingdom in all areas of life.

Sheets tells of a World Vision development project near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1989 where they noticed the villagers worshiped a huge tree which they believed housed demon spirits.  The World Vision team recognized this stood in the way of the love of God bringing local people into his kingdom.

They recalled Jesus' comment in the Luke 17:6 that if his disciples had faith as small as a mustard seed, they could tell a nearby tree to be uprooted and thrown into the sea.  So, they prayed along those lines as the villagers watched in the coming weeks.

Six months later, the tree's leaves dried up and finally it collapsed into the river.  The villagers were astonished, declaring that the team's God did it and 100 villagers became believers.

Sheets mentions other striking stories to support his contention.

He says Christians are not to force their faith on others.  But they can pray and be open to sharing their faith.

"We are not merely human," writes Sheets.  "We are supernatural sons and daughters of the Most High God, filled with his Spirit and anointed to rule."

He states emphatically: "If a society or culture remains the same after Christ's church shows up, then the church is not being the church."

That is quite a challenge to us as followers of Jesus.

The significance of praying together

Imagine your country being threatened with invasion by foreign powers:  Would your president or prime minister call a national prayer meeting to plead with God?

Probably not.  Even Christian leaders these days are unlikely to make group prayer to God a priority.

But King Jehoshaphat of Judah did exactly that when faced with an invading force of Moabites, Ammonites and Meunites. 

I believe we can learn from the steps Jehoshaphat and the people of Judah took when confronted by this powerful threat.

Jehoshaphat believed in God and turned to him first before taking any action.

In 2 Chronicles 20, we read that Jehoshaphat proclaimed a national fast and called a prayer meeting.

"The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him."

Clearly, the fear of invasion galvanized the people.  At the same time, they obviously believed that God could do something.

Do we believers consult God before we take action?  Do we seek our commander's orders before going into battle in our everyday lives?  Do we join together in the face of adversity?

Jehoshaphat opened the prayer meeting by laying out the problem clearly before the Lord and declared his confidence that God "will hear us and save us".  He was placing his entire trust in God.

His prayer concluded with these words: "We have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us.  We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you."

Do we as believers try to do everything on our own strength?  Or do we, like the apostle Paul, admit that we are weak and depend on the strength of God (2 Corinthians 12:10)? God works best when we allow him to lead us and work through us.

After Jehoshaphat's prayer, Jehaziel, a Levite, is moved by the Holy Spirit to deliver a message to his king and the people of Judah.  He tells them that God has informed him that they are not to fear the enemy because "the battle is not yours, but God's".  He even says the Lord declares they will not even have to fight their enemies - the Lord will take care of them.

For me, this is one of the great blessings of group prayer.  As we pray together, God moves in our hearts and solutions to problems emerge simply as we pray.  One person's prayer sparks a response in another individual's and suddenly we see an answer emerging.  It is the Holy Spirit at work.

As a result of the prayer meeting, the people of Judah go out to meet their enemies, praising the Lord.  They do not have to raise a finger in anger - God causes the enemies to fight among themselves.  They win a victory without striking a blow.

We North Americans are so used to using our minds and our hands in practical ways that we have forgotten the value of coming together in prayer.

But the apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12: "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

If that is true - and I believe it is - we should pray first before acting.  What we see around us is not the most important thing - what is happening behind the scenes in the heavenly realms is far more important.

We don't need a war to spur us to pray.  Satan is behind evil and is always active.

We need to pray together - united - all the time.

Prayer and outreach

Some years ago, a friend told me that he had no time for prayer - he was busy reaching out to others with the good news of Jesus Christ.

John Bisagno and Peter Golin believe that prayer is essential in effective evangelism.

"Prayer is not just an optional part of evangelism, but must be an essential part of every aspect of our evangelistic efforts," says Golin, a British Columbia medical doctor, in his book Living the Gospel.

"Is there any connection between prayer and evangelism?" asks Bisagno in his book The Power of Positive Praying.  "A ten-day prayer meeting in the Upper Room nailed that at Pentecost."

Bisagno was talking about the prayer gathering of the followers of Christ after his ascension to heaven and the outpouring of the Spirit upon them at Pentecost when they preached to crowds and 3,000 of them became believers.

Bisagno has personal experience to back up his view that prayer is a vital part of outreach to people who do not know Jesus.

Before preaching at evangelistic crusades, he tried to spend one or two hours in prayer every afternoon before the evening event.  He saw a direct relationship between the amount of time he spent in prayer and the number of people who accepted Christ in the evening.

Before his first crusade in Belfast, Ireland, 80 people prayed all night and 360 people gave their lives to the Lord the following day.  Similar prayer sessions at other great rallies led to similar results.

Billy Graham, the greatest evangelist of the 20th century, has said that prayer before his crusades was key to the large numbers of people who poured down to the stadium floor to receive Jesus.

Why is that?  Because we do not save people - God does. 

The Spirit of God works in the hearts of people to bring them to himself.  And we are co-labourers with the Lord as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:9.  It is our task to be instruments of God's love and to talk about Jesus as the Lord provides opportunities through prayer.

Golin says prayer should surround every aspect of our relationship with others.  Here are some of his suggestions for daily prayer:

• Pray that we will love Jesus more and have increased compassion for others;
• Pray for opportunities to talk about Jesus every day;
• Pray that the Lord will open the hearts of non-believing friends to Christ;
• Pray that we will understand, learn and present the gospel clearly;
• Pray that we will put aside our pride and be vulnerable as a witness of our faith to others;
• Ask the Lord to give us humility, gentleness, patience, honesty and respect as we share our faith in Christ;
• Ask that God will take our eyes off ourselves and direct them to him as we share the gospel; and
• Ask for courage to turn the conversation to the Lord.

I realize I can't do anything without God. 

But God will work in every situation as I pray.