I was reminded again this week of the importance and power of prayer in my life. On Monday morning, during my time of talking with God, I asked Him if He would grant me an opportunity to share the message the Gospel with someone (a request I need to be asking of God much more often). Anyway, after sitting in the dentist chair and having my teeth cleaned (a very hard place to share the gospel when someone always has their hands in your mouth with cleaning instruments), I went and paid someone a visit in the hospital. Upon walking into her room, the first words out of her mouth were, “You are just the man I was hoping to see this morning, because I know that I need to get saved and I need to get saved today!” Talk about an amazing answer to prayer!! At that point I reviewed the message of the Gospel with her, and she gave her life to Christ right there in the hospital room.
I share that story with you for a couple of different reasons. First, so that you can join with me in celebrating with all the angels in heaven that another person has been added to the body of Christ. God is still at work saving souls, and we are seeing him use the ministry of South Baptist Church to do it. Continue to plant and water the seeds of the Gospel in people’s lives, because you never know when God is going to give the increase.
Secondly, I share that story with you in order to encourage you in regard to the power of prayer. Like most people, I can struggle keeping my prayer life vibrant and consistent. However, it is a very powerful and effective tool in the life of a Christ-follower, and therefore one that we need to be picking up and using as much as possible. This is certainly not easy, so permit me to share with you something that has helped me. I try to keep in mind that prayer is simply a way in which God and I talk, just as I might talk with other individuals in my life. As a result, when I pray in the morning, I like to go down in my basement, sit on the couch, and put a chair across from me. I imagine that God is sitting in that chair and that He and I are having a conversation together – a conversation in which I thank Him for some things, share with Him struggles I am having, apologize to Him for ways in which I have disobeyed Him and disappointed Him, and ask Him for things. I do this same thing when I am driving in the car; I imagine that he is sitting in the empty passenger seat next to me and we are just talking.
Thinking this way has certainly helped me to keep my prayer life much more vibrant. Scripture tells us that we aren’t just a friend of God’s, but we are also dearly loved children of His. Therefore we need to talk with God as naturally as we would our friend or father; this in turn help us to keep our prayer lives vibrant and much more consistent. You may feel a little uncomfortable, or even a little weird at first doing this, but I would encourage you to try it and see what it can do for your prayer life.
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