P.R.A.Y.E.R. – Proactively Pursue Prayer

 

Is it hard for you to find the time to pray? 

Most people today are really busy with jobs, church, families and all the things that go with them. 

It can be especially hard for moms of young children. Many have BMS — Busy Mom Syndrome. No such thing as TGIF — no weekends off for them. For moms, it’s Thank God I’m Free whenever they get to go to the grocery store by themselves! 

One of my favorite scenes in the movie War Room is when Miss Clara asks Elizabeth what her prayer life is like, whether it’s hot or cold. Elizabeth replies that maybe it’s somewhere in the middle, like most people with busy schedules.

If you saw the movie, you may remember the scene — Miss Clara then pours Elizabeth a cup of coffee, at which Elizabeth takes a sip, winces and inquires if Miss Clara likes her coffee room temperature. Miss Clara retorts, “No. Mine is hot.”

 

James 5:16 says, The effective fervent prayer of a righteous person avails much.

Fervent means: showing strong emotion; passionate; zealous; burning

Like Miss Clara’s coffee. 

And like her prayer life. 
 

Many people have hot prayer lives like Miss Clara. But many others, if they find time to pray at all, pray short on-the-go prayers. Nothing wrong with those, but they’re certainly not the kind James 5:16 talks about.

For others, it’s only 911 prayers.

Still others struggle with the faith to believe prayer does anything at all.

But no matter what kind of praying we do or what temperature we’d say our prayer life is, one thing is for sure — 

The only unanswered prayers are the ones not prayed.

 James 4:2 says, You have not because you ask not. 

Miss Clara advised having a prayer strategy. Did you know Jesus gave us a strategy for prayer? It’s in Matthew 6, called The Lord’s Prayer. If you look closely, you’ll see several different elements Jesus taught in that prayer. It’s a guideline for His strategy for prayer.        

With the Lord’s leading, I’ve developed an acrostic for the word prayer to teach us all those elements He taught us.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:9, In this manner pray…

First, P is for Proactively Pursue Prayer. We simply must be intentional about our prayer life, just as we’re intentional about getting everything else done in our busy lives.

We can be intentional by having a specific time to pray fervently and a specific place. We may not all be able to designate a whole closet/room to prayer like in the move, but we can have a specific place, a chair, or a kneeling spot. I have a chair in one corner of my family room with a table beside it that has everything I need – my Bible and other references, journal, pens, highlighters, and of course tissues for those teary moments.

 

I hope this acrostic will help you to become more proactive about your prayer life. We will look at more letters of this acrostic in the upcoming weeks each Saturday morning.

We have much to pray for, don’t we?

God bless! 

 

This blog is a sample of a six-week Bible study I have been writing called Pursuing God in P.R.A.Y.E.R. – Six Steps to Prevailing Prayer. I would love to share the first week with you free and keep you posted of publication. Just send me an email at lifecoachpenny@yahoo.com and mention the code FREE1st.