Prayer for the World
There seems to be a renewed sense of the importance of prayer in the Evangelical church this year. I have seen several churches start new programs regarding prayer and several articles have been written in recent weeks. Part of this might be due to the tragedies of 2005. It might have to due with some popular leaders who espcially need prayer at this point. Whatever the reasons, I am glad to see so great a focus on prayer.
Prayer is exceedingly difficult for most people. As one of my elders recently said, prayer is the one thing that requires the most faith and is the most foolish if God does not exist. Most aspects of healthy Christian living would have some residual benefit if God were not real. Prayer, however, if God does not exist, is sitting in a room talking to yourself. For this reason and others, prayer is a huge struggle for almost every Christian.
One of the best ways to maintain a solid prayer life is to have structure. It is important that we have some sort of spontaneity in our prayer life, but it should not be reduced to random acts of prayer. One type of structure that has been helpful for myself is the ACTS acronym where you focus on Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. However, I find that often we need even more structure than that. What do we pray for when we lift up our supplications? We all probably have a sense that the Great Commission is important and we ought to pray for it in some regard. How can we do this?
One thing that I have found helpful is Operation World. This website has a daily prayer section where it moves throughout every country in the world. It gives statistics, real-life events, and other information that gives us a more informed prayer time. As an addition to your normal prayer life, I think that this is a great resource to consider using.
-mike
Prayer is exceedingly difficult for most people. As one of my elders recently said, prayer is the one thing that requires the most faith and is the most foolish if God does not exist. Most aspects of healthy Christian living would have some residual benefit if God were not real. Prayer, however, if God does not exist, is sitting in a room talking to yourself. For this reason and others, prayer is a huge struggle for almost every Christian.
One of the best ways to maintain a solid prayer life is to have structure. It is important that we have some sort of spontaneity in our prayer life, but it should not be reduced to random acts of prayer. One type of structure that has been helpful for myself is the ACTS acronym where you focus on Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. However, I find that often we need even more structure than that. What do we pray for when we lift up our supplications? We all probably have a sense that the Great Commission is important and we ought to pray for it in some regard. How can we do this?
One thing that I have found helpful is Operation World. This website has a daily prayer section where it moves throughout every country in the world. It gives statistics, real-life events, and other information that gives us a more informed prayer time. As an addition to your normal prayer life, I think that this is a great resource to consider using.
-mike
posted by Mike | 11:59 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home