Saturday, September 16, 2006

Deepening Our Prayer Life

Prayer to the believer is like breathing. It is necessary to live and it's needful to survive. William Gurnall said that "Praying is the same to the new creature as crying to the natural. The child is not learned by art or example to cry, but instructed by nature; it comes into the world crying. Praying is not a lesson got by forms and rules of art, but flowing from principles of new life itself."

Our time with God in prayer is necessary and needful in this life. A simple definition for prayer is "taking to God." When we pray we are talking to God. When we read God's Word He is talking to us. In order for us to have communication with God we must talk to Him and read His Word. As you begin your prayer time let me give you some good advice: "Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you; tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your dislikes, that He may help you to conquer them, talk to Him of your temptations, that He may shield you from them; show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love make you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to your self and to others. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subjects of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God" (Charles Swindoll, Strengthening Your Grip ).

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