Prayer

As a kid growing up in the 50's, we lived for breakfast cereal. Rice Krispies, Cornflakes, Sugar Pops, Puffed Wheat......we had to have breakfast cereal. Not because we liked the cereal but because of the prizes inside. There was always some toy or gadget inside along with the opportunity to send off for even greater prizes. Finish up the cornflakes, take the box and get your mother's good scissors ( I don't remember any mother having a pair of bad scissors, just always the "good ones") to cut out the box top and order form. I'd take my quarter or fifty-cent piece and tape it to the box top, place it in an envelope, get a stamp and shoot it out to the mail box. Then came the hard part............waiting.

After what seemed like an eternity, a uniformed Currier of the Federal Government (Mail man) would deliver the package to my mail box. The package would always be addressed to Master Michael Bynum. Master! What an incredible title. No one in my own family recognized me as anyone other than a little boy, but in Battle Creek, Michigan......those folks saw me as Master. Inside would be the trinket or toy I had sent off for and over the next few weeks it was my prized possession.

You know, prayer is like that in a lot of ways. We send our prayers up to God, expecting to receive something in return. Scripture says our prayers are like sweet smelling incense which rise and come before the throne of God. I guess somewhere along the way, God burns out from our prayers those requests that really aren't good for us. You know...the prayers we pray that are really more from our flesh than from the spirit. "O lord! If you could just give me that Porsche, I could be such a witness for you!." God is saying, "Yeah...right!"

Leonard Ravenhill made the comment that after our life is over and we stand before God the one thing that most believers will be ashamed of is the smallness of our prayers. I think that sometimes our need to pray is in direct proportion to the events that are going on in our lives. Shouldn't be that way but I'm afraid that is the simple truth. When times are good and life is not hard, we really don't pursue prayer that much. But you let life take the slightest turn for the bad and we suddenly become prayer warriors. Although it be that we become selfish prayer warriors. I don't want to live like that. I want prayer to be a vital part of my daily life. I tend to pray what I refer to as "sentence" prayers. I pray them all day long as I encounter people and situations. The main focus for me is "What is your will in this situation Lord?" As much as I pray, I also try to spend an equal amount of "listening" for God, trying to hear His heart and directions for my life.

Just like the package that came with my prize in it that was addressed to Master Michael Bynum, God sends down His answers to our prayers specifically addressed to "His Child". The world may not recognize that title on us, but our heavenly Father does and how cool is that?

Make the move to begin to pray more.

Jesus, after running everyone out of the Temple said, "My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer....you have made it a den of thieves." That is my heart. That we truly do become prayer warriors.

Prayer changes things here in the natural world.

Think on this today...
God on you......

mb