prayer life

Time of prayer is proof to who I am

tme of prayer proof to who I am

Praying for healing would be something I would say I am most uncomfortable with. Mostly because people do not get healed when I pray – or so I think. A few have and those I know, my prayer was short, intense and focused on asking God to get involved now.

So I was surprised to find a similar prayer in the life of Moses.

So Moses cried out to the Lord, “O God, heal her!” – Numbers 12:13 GNT

In my research I found out some things about this prayer. The original text goes like this – “O God now, heal her now.” I would have thrown in an exclamation mark on this one. The repetition of the word “now” would imply the earnestness and importunity and this person (Miriam) would be healed immediately. Moses addresses God with the word “El.” It is a strong word for God and expresses Moses’ faith in the power of God. It would suggest that no one else could do what he was asking Him to do. I believe, when I look at this from afar, that this type of prayer is proof of Moses being a meek, humble and forgiving person, inviting God to take the lead role is setting things right.

So the prayer of Psalm 49 is one I take in slowly and express slowly so that I may meditate while praying it.

The soberness of my sin or the complete holiness of God cannot be barriers to me in my prayer life. That bridge has separated by Jesus.

We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain—that is, through his own body. We have a great priest in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water. – Hebrews 10:19-22 GNT

So I come into prayer with a confidence.
“Prayer is a means to energy…Spiritual alertness, vigor, and confidence are the regular spin-offs from earnest prayer on any subject. The Puritans spoke of prayer as oiling the wheels of the soul” – J.I. Packer, Knowing Christianity, 128

Sanctified prayer life

prayer as worship leading to sanctification

I love the shepherd analogy of Psalm 23. God fully keeps His promises, He faithfully sees them through to the end. He leads people until each one finds their place to settle. At the end of the day, when the plans are complete, we are better off than we were before. Here are the four unmistakable traits of a shepherd that I can meditate on in my devotional prayer life.

He will cause us to:

  1. move when we need to
  2. lead and protect us along the way
  3. bring us to new and fruitful lands
  4. fully establish and settle us in them

These are big things to consider along the way, but God cares about the little things as well. For instance, praying before a meal – it matters to God what that looks like.

Everything that God has created is good; nothing is to be rejected, but everything is to be received with a prayer of thanks, because the word of God and the prayer make it acceptable to God. – 1 Timothy 4:4-5 GNT

The first thing I notice is that the actual emphasis is not on God blessing the food, but on thanking God for the blessing of providing food to eat. While it is good and proper for me to pray before a meal, it should not be done in a ritualistic, superstitious way. Nor should it be done to show others how spiritual we are. I remember my pastor taking me out to lunch one day and he suggested we not pray over our food as it was an unnecessary tradition. I quickly rejected that idea and am thankful that this was confirmed today as the right attitude to have and not to neglect prayer just because one thinks it could be traditional.

While the food we eat may not be pure – everything we eat is holy when received as His gift with thanksgiving and with prayer – that is what sanctified means. In other words, all food is sanctified by a grace before a meal. There is no formula as to what that prayer should look like, but if I keep referring everything to God as the giver of all – taking everything as a gift from God – I come with thanks to God from my heart and my prayer will reflect this.

Not that this is a formula prayer, but I found a prayer written, they say it may be the oldest form of Christian grace before a meal recorded in the Apostolic Constitutions. It is simple and not too long.

“Blessed be Thou, O Lord, who nourisheth men from very youth up, who givest meat to all flesh; fill our hearts with joy and gladness, so that we, always enjoying a sufficiency, may abound unto every good work in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom be ascribed to Thee glory, honour, and power unto the ages. Amen.”

“In speaking of our daily bread, we do not bid farewell to God’s glory, but we ask only what is expedient for Him. We come with our needs, expecting a positive response, but we do so, changed by our satisfaction in Him and our trust of Him. Because of that, we do not come arrogantly and anxiously telling Him what has to happen. Many things we would have otherwise agonized over, we can now ask for without desperation.” – John Calvin