Living a Life of Prayer, Part II

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July 31, 2022

Do you want a more profound and steady prayer life? Ask God. In addition to placing a value on prayer, we must be willing to do the praying. And asking God to give us more of a heart of prayer is one of the ways we can develop a lifestyle of prayer.

Pray to pray more.

Can I pray to God to help me pray more? Yes, you can ask for more.

I remember the day so clearly. I was talking with a friend who helped me learn more about Jesus as I grew in my walk as a Christian. I admired his life as he, alongside many others, reflected Jesus in ways I had not seen before. Conversations about him praying to God and God talking back to him in prayer inspired me. He was like a modern-day Moses, and I was so enamored that God would talk back to him. This brother could pray paint off the wall. He opened his mouth, and you knew he was praying with confidence and authority that could only come from being with God. Whatever he had, I wanted it and needed to learn how.

Out of curiosity and desperation to have what he modeled, I asked him how he had such a strong prayer life. I thought he would give me a ten-page document with scriptures and steps to follow. He didn't; he said two things - Ask God to pray more, and read God’s word. It was simple.

So here is an encouraging excerpt from a trusted friend, Dr. Patierno, on asking God for more, especially related to prayer.

Praying for more

In our house, the contemporary Christian song "Jireh" by Maverick City Worship frequently plays, sometimes continuously. The powerful refrain of the song says, "Jireh, you are enough," a contemporary take on an important name for God used in scripture, Jehovah Jireh, which means "provider ." As I found myself quietly worshiping the Lord through this chorus, I started thinking, wait a minute, if He himself is "enough" and He is our provider, then why do we continually pray for "more"? Is there a contradiction that might affect our intercession for the body of Christ and our Church?

Unlike the children of Israel gathering manna in the wilderness, no matter how much we gather, it should be "enough," and we should be thankful (Genesis 16:4-17). Scripture even teaches us that his "grace is sufficient" (2 Cor 12:9). So, if He is both "enough" and "sufficient," then should we be continually crying out to Him for more?

Apparently yes. In Philippians 4:6, we read, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God ." And, of course, we are exhorted to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess 5:16-18), and Jesus himself instructs us to badger his Father in prayer, always to pray, and to keep on praying, in the parable of a woman badgering a judge for a just ruling in her favor (Luke 18:1-8).

It would appear then that there is no conflict with continually living in peace and confidence that "He is enough" and "His grace is sufficient" and continuously asking for more in prayer. We are to find rest and peace in knowing that knowing Him and being known by Him is enough for our salvation and eternal security. We are to find joy in the knowledge that His unmerited favor, expressed through salvation by Christ and the ongoing indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, is sufficient for our spirit and soul to find sabbath rest. 

Nevertheless, we are to press in prayer, partly because prayer itself is the surest sign of our dependency on Him and His being both "enough" and "sufficient"! Prayer with thanksgiving is the ultimate act of worship – it constitutes a stark and frank confession of dependency on Him and Him alone and humble gratitude for His "enoughness."

Charles Spurgeon captured some of this dichotomy in a famous quote about prayer itself (here rendered in modern vernacular rather than his King James English): "Pray for prayer – pray until you can actually pray, pray to be helped to pray, and don't give up praying just because you can't pray, for it is when you think that you cannot pray that you are actually praying the most."

This then reminds me of another important person in scripture who was trying to pray, but nothing seemed to be happening. Recall the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1, who appeared to be stupified: "her lips were moving, but there was no sound to her words" (v13). But Eli had gotten it all wrong – she was not drunk (v 14). Instead, she was experiencing what we now think of as "travailing" because she was barren and deeply troubled. She was pouring out her soul to the Lord (v15) so intensely in her grief and anguish that she couldn't speak. And we all know what happened – the Lord remembered her voiceless prayer and healed her barrenness. She gave birth to a son and named him Samuel, which means "asked of and heard by God."

Let us first rest in the knowledge that He is our provider and He Himself is enough. And let us also press into God's heart with prayer and thanksgiving so that we, in faith, become "Samuels," where in our very identity becomes those who are "asking of God and heard by God." Let us appropriate into our hearts that His grace is sufficient. Let us travail like Hannah, pouring out our souls with that same sense of desperation for more as we cry out for the Lord to turn our barrenness into fruitfulness and for our churches and the Church. So we can fully embrace its calling as a transformative city on a hill and that we will continue to prepare for the birthing and discipling of a harvest that is already upon us.

In Christ,