We Need To Pray
Just as oxygen is vital to our natural life, prayer is vital to our spiritual life. We need to pray regularly, faithful and continually in order to live as God intended.
Each of us will face trying circumstances and troubles in life. We could never win a war without fighting some kind of battle. We are going to have trials, but in our trials, we can build up our faith. We do not have to be moved by the circumstances in our life. When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, He will take us from victory to victory. We all know or should know how powerful prayer is. We need to pray continually, because prayers change things.
God has called each and every one of us to pray. Christians are called to have a lifestyle of prayer, meaningful prayer. In Ephesians 6:18 Paul says, “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.” We often think of prayer as a means of calling for our heavenly servant, saying “give me this. I need that. I want this.” Or we think of prayer as calling upon our heavenly lifeguard. We say “Lord I am drowning. Help me, save me.” But this is not how we should pray. Prayer should be something we do on a continual basis, not just when we want something or are in trouble. Prayer should be as automatic to us as breathing.
Taking in oxygen is vital to our life. If we do not continually receive oxygen, we will die. Just think if on each Sunday we said, “Okay, I am going to take in my oxygen for the week.” It would not be long before we fell over and died. We have to breathe oxygen on a daily basis, every hour, and every minute.
Prayer is our Spiritual oxygen. We need it continually and all the time. But too many Christians pray on Sunday and think they do not need to pray any more that week. Or they will pray before meals and think they are all prayed up. Then they wonder why they are not living a victorious life. It is because they only took one breath of prayer for the week or month, and that is not enough to get by on. To be victorious and spiritually healthy, we must live a life of prayer.
I remember taking driver’s Education back in high school. I could hardly wait to take those classes, because I wanted to drive. I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do and go where I wanted to go.
During the first two weeks of the class, we learned the rules and regulations of driving. We learned about road signs, signal lights, the proper distance to follow another car, and so on. But did knowing the rules qualify us to drive? No. We had yet to actually get in a car and start driving.
It is important to know the rules of driving, but to become a good driver, a person should spend more time practicing the actual driving of a car then they do learning the rules. It is the same way with prayer. To be successful in prayer, we need to spend more time actually praying than studying the rules of prayer. But so many times, we have it backwards. We spend all our time learning the rules of prayer without actually spending time praying.
Yes, it is important that we learn how to pray. But it is even more important that we pray. Prayer is not easy, it takes work, and the enemy tries to keep us from praying. He offers so many distractions, trying to consume our time, even with good things. Why doesn’t the devil want Christians to pray? He knows there is power in prayer.
In driving school, the more we practiced driving, the better driver we became. The same is true with prayer. The more you and I pray, the better we will become at praying.
I have learned to pray ever since I was a child. But I have never wanted to share my prayer life with other people. I have always been very private in my prayers. I wanted to keep my prayer life between God and me. Growing up, I heard other people pray such beautiful prayers. Always knowing what to say and how to say it. They used all sorts of adjectives and beautiful words, and I would think, God, I don’t pray like that. I would pray and just get to the point. So, I have never wanted to let others in on my prayer life. I keep praying to keep my prayer life between God and I, but God keeps answering back and saying, “No. You need to help and lead others to develop a relationship in prayer with the heavenly Father.”
God has a plan for each of us, and it is important that we learn to follow the plan God has for our life.
God knows how important prayer is; that’s why He gave us instructions to pray and instructions on how to pray. Even the devil knows how important prayer is. Now it is time for Christians to realize prayer’s importance, and to devote time to a lifestyle of prayer, meaningful prayer, prayer between you and God in full undivided attention.