But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matt 6:6, ESV)
I have been incredibly encouraged by speaking with many of you over the past few weeks about wanting to have a deeper prayer life. This is certainly something that the true disciples of Jesus Christ want, a greater intimacy with our Heavenly Father through the Holy Spirit. It is indeed a wonderful work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that gives us a greater desire to be in the presence of our Heavenly Father (Rom 8:26-27). However just because we have a desire doesn’t mean that we always know how to act on it and that seems to be the thing that cultivates many questions about how to go about a deeper and richer prayer life. And so I just want to say a few things to those of you who desire that intimacy with God in your prayer time.
Though God reveals Himself through Jesus to be our Heavenly Father, we must always remember who we are speaking to and that is to the creator of the universe. That means a couple of things. First, He already knows what you need, so don’t haphazardly speak frivolously to Him, take care with how you speak (Ecc 5:2, Gen 18:27, Job 40:4). However in saying that, second, don’t hide your heart from him, he already knows what’s going on, and he wants to hear all about it (1 Pet 5:7). Again, He is the creator of the universe, which means whatever we take to Him He not only hears it, but He can do something about it, so be specific in your prayers and ask for the things you need (Matt 7:7, Jam 4:3)
Which leads me to also encourage you to be aware of the Holy Spirit in your prayers. Now what I mean by that is that as you pray be mindful of what comes to the surface as you pray. Is there a pressing matter? Are you aware of sin? Is there bitterness or offence? Well as you pray don’t push those things to the side but speak to God about them (Heb 4:14-16) and be specific about the things that are on your heart. Is there sin? Confess it to Him (1 Jn 1:8-2:2), do you desire holiness? Speak to Him about it (Gal 5:22-23). Now I understand that all of this takes time and the one thing that we seem to not have a lot of in this world is time! But should that ever translate into never really having the time to pray? Well Jesus, the perfect man, shows us that though He was incredibly busy doing his Father’s work, He always made it a priority to spend time with our Father (Mk 1:35, 6:45-46). Time I understand is a precious thing but should our prayer lives ever be at the mercy of our business? I think the answer is obvious. Maybe you could pray about having wisdom in how to prioritise this incredibly important thing in your life (Jam 1:5)
I would also encourage you to not give up in your prayer life but to persevere in prayer. I know rather personally that you might not always “feel” like your prayers are getting to the throne of grace, however that is to not be gospel centric in your prayer life as the gospel reveals to us that through Christ our prayers are heard by our Heavenly Father (1 Jn 5:14). So don’t pray just with your feelings (though they are important to), no pray with your heart and head, in other words pray with faith knowing that through Christ our prayers are indeed heard (1 Pet 3:12). One last thing, I find that praying for others is an incredibly rich exercise that has been given to the people of God and something that we must do. We call it intercession when we pray for the needs of others. It is a wonderful thing to take the burdens of others before the throne of grace in our prayer life (1 Tim 2:1).
If you don’t know where to start then great place to start is with asking God to help you in your prayer life. I’d also like to invite you to the prayer meetings that are held during the week. Tues 8am-9am or Fri 9:30am-10:30am.