IT’S PERSONAL
Everything about our spiritual lives depends on our personal faith in God and our personal relationship with Him. We can enjoy that relationship because Jesus’ death on the cross gives us free, unhindered access to our heavenly Father and our faith makes it possible for us to have an intimate, dynamic relationship with Him.
I recently read Ephesians 3:12, which says: “In Whom, because of our faith in Him, we dare to have the boldness (courage and confidence) of free access (an unreserved approach to God with freedom and without fear).” As I meditated upon this Scripture, I became quite excited to realize that as ordinary human beings we have free access to God at any time through prayer. We can approach Him boldly without reserve, without fear, and with complete freedom. How awesome is that! Personal faith in God opens the door to unlimited help from Him.
Early in my prayer journey, I came across a wonderful little book that has helped millions of believers over the years learn how to pray. In this classic volume, titled With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray addresses this matter of asking God to teach us to pray, and writes: “None can teach like Jesus, none but Jesus; therefore we call on Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray.’ A pupil needs a teacher, who knows his work, who has the gift of teaching, who in patience and love will descend to the pupil’s needs. Blessed be God! Jesus is all this and much more. . . Jesus loves to teach us how to pray.”2 Don’t just try to pray, ask Jesus to teach you!
Jesus not only loves to teach us—corporately—how to pray, He also loves to work with us as individuals. He wants to take us just the way we are and help each of us discover our own rhythm of prayer and develop a style of prayer that maximizes our personal relationship with Him. He wants prayer to be an easy, natural, life-giving way of communicating with Him as we share our hearts with Him and allow Him to share His heart with us. Prayer is so simple; it is nothing more than talking to God. It also includes listening to what He has to say. God speaks to us in many ways. If you desire to learn more about how He speaks, I encourage you to read my book entitled How to Hear from God.
God is far too creative to teach every person on earth to interact with Him through prayer in exactly the same way. He is the one who designed us all differently and delights in our distinctiveness. As I stated previously, there are “prayer principles” that apply to all believers, but God leads each of us as individuals. We are all in different places in our walk with Him, we are all at different levels of spiritual maturity, and we all have had different types of experiences in prayer. When we learn principles of prayer, we need to move beyond intellectual knowledge about how to pray and take those principles to the Lord and say, “Teach me to apply this in my life, in my situation, to my heart. Show me how this idea is supposed to work for me. God, I’m depending on You to teach me how to pray, to make me effective in prayer, to make my relationship with You through prayer the richest, most rewarding aspect of my life.”
EMBRACE YOUR UNIQUENESS
Because we relate to God as individuals—and that’s the way He wants it—we pray as individuals. Even when we pray corporately with others, we are all still individuals; we simply join our hearts with others as one voice. During these corporate prayer times, I believe that God wants our hearts to be in unity much more than He wants our methods to be the same. When we say, “Lord, teach me to pray,” we are asking Him to teach us to pray in a distinctly personal way and to enable our prayers to be easy, natural expressions of who we are. We are not supposed to check our individuality at the door of the prayer closet. We need to go before God just the way we are and give Him the pleasure of enjoying the company of the “original” He has made each one of us to be. We need to approach God with our own strengths, weaknesses, uniqueness, and everything else that so wonderfully distinguishes us from everyone else in the world. God enjoys meeting us where we are, developing a personal relationship with us and helping us grow to become everything He wants us to be.
Because God has fashioned
our hearts individually, our
prayers need to flow
naturally out of our hearts
and be consistent with the way
He has designed us.
Psalm 33:15 says, “He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works”(NKJV). Because God has fashioned our hearts individually, our prayers need to flow naturally out of our hearts and be consistent with the way He has designed us. As we develop our individual styles of communication with God, we can learn from people who may be more experienced than we are, but we need to be careful not to make them our standard. I hope to be an example to many, but I want Jesus to be their standard. There is nothing at all wrong with incorporating something someone else is doing into your own prayer life if you truly feel led by God’s Spirit to do so. But, it is wrong to force yourself to do what others do if you are not comfortable with that in your spirit. Do not try to keep up with others or copy their prayer styles—and do not feel compelled to work every prayer principle you have ever learned every time you pray.
Most people are afraid not to be like everyone else. Many people are more comfortable following specified rules than daring to follow the leading of God’s Spirit. When we follow man-made rules, we please people, but when we step out in faith and follow God’s Spirit, we please Him. We do not need to feel pressured to pray a certain way or for a certain length of time or to focus on specific things because other people are doing so. Instead, we need to be free to express our uniqueness as we pray the way God is teaching us as individuals.
Somehow we feel safe when we are doing what everyone else is doing, but the sad thing is that we will feel unfulfilled until we learn to “untie the boat from the dock,” so to speak, and let the ocean of God’s Spirit take us wherever He wills. When we are in control, we know what will happen next, but when we let God’s Spirit take the lead, we are in for a lot of surprises in life. We need to be determined to be ourselves and refuse to spend our lives feeling guilty because we are not like someone else.
My husband, Dave, has a passion to pray for the United States of America and he does so on a regular basis. I have a passion to see God’s children mature. I also have a great passion for the poor and oppressed, so I spend much of my prayer time praying about these situations. I know some people who focus intensely on the abortion issue when they pray and others who focus on missions with the same type of fervor. My point is that God places different things on each of our hearts and, in that way, everything is covered. No one can pray about everything that needs to be prayed about every day, but God’s Spirit leads each of us if we allow Him.
I suffered for a long time before I learned what I am sharing with you and I don’t want you to suffer as I did. Let my pain be your gain! Start right now asking Jesus to teach you as an individual how to apply to your life all of the principles of prayer you have ever been taught in His own unique way for you. I believe variety is the key to enjoying everything, including prayer, so let God’s Spirit lead you to use various principles as they are needed in your personal situations.
THE KEY TO PRAYER
If I had to identify the most important key to effective prayer, I would say that it is approaching God as His friend. When we go to God believing that He sees us as His friends, new wonders are opened to us. We experience freedom and boldness, which are both necessary to effective prayer.
If we do not know God as a friend, and if we are not confident that He thinks of us as His friends, we will be reluctant to tell Him what we need or to ask Him for anything. If we have stiff, distant relationships with God, our prayers can be legalistic. But if we go to Him as our friend, without losing our awe of Him, our prayers will stay fresh, exciting, and intimate.
A natural friendship involves loving and being loved. It means knowing that someone is on your side, wanting to help you, cheering you on, and always keeping your best interest in mind. A friend is someone you value, a comrade, a partner, someone who is dear to you, some
one you want to spend time with, and someone you enjoy. You become someone’s friend by investing time in them and with them, and by sharing your life with that person.
Developing your friendship with God is similar to developing a friendship with someone on earth. It takes time. The truth is that you can be as close to God as you want to be; it all depends on the time you are willing to invest in the relationship. I encourage you to get to know Him by spending time in prayer and in the Word. Your friendship with God will also deepen and grow as you walk with Him over time on a regular basis and as you experience His faithfulness. The difference between developing a relationship with God as a friend and building relationships with people is that with God, you end up with a friend who is perfect! One who will never leave you nor forsake you. One who is faithful, dependable, loving, and forgiving.
You can be as close to God as you want to be; it all depends on the time you are willing to invest in the relationship.
Make a priority of developing a great friendship with God and inviting Him to be a vital part of everything you do, every day. That starts with simple prayer—just talking to Him and sharing your life with Him as you go about the things you have to do. Include Him in your thoughts, in your conversation, and in all your everyday activities. Don’t just run to Him when you are desperate; talk to Him in the grocery store, while you are driving your car, combing your hair, walking the dog, or cooking dinner. Approach Him as your partner and your friend and simply refuse to do anything without Him. He really wants to be involved in your life! Let God out of the Sunday-morning box that many people keep Him in and let Him invade your Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and all day Sunday as well. Don’t try to keep Him in a religious compartment, because He wants to have free access to every area of your life. He wants to be your friend.
Abraham
Perhaps no one mentioned in the Bible is more often referred to as “God’s friend” than Abraham. In Isaiah 41:8, God calls Abraham “My friend,” and James 2:23 says, “. . .he was called God’s friend.” In the Old Testament, King Jehoshaphat, while he was talking to God one day, said that Abraham is “Your friend” (2 Chronicles 20:7). While the Bible refers to David as “a man after God’s own heart” and to John as “the disciple Jesus loved,” Abraham has the distinct honor of being called the friend of God in more than one place in Scripture.
When God decided to execute judgment on the wickedness of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, He told Abraham what He planned to do. We read about this in Genesis 18:17, which says: “Shall I hide from Abraham [My friend and servant] what I am going to do?” Why? Because they were friends.
In a friendship, people talk to each other about what they are going to do. How many times has a friend said to you, “What are you doing today?” and you reply with something like, “I’m going to the grocery store this morning and to a ball game tonight.” Or how often have you asked someone, “What’s your schedule next week?” and he or she responds, “I have a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday and a meeting on Thursday. But would you like to have lunch on Wednesday?”
Because God considered Abraham His friend, He told him what He was going to do—just like you would tell your friend. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:6 to acknowledge God in all of our ways and that He will direct our steps. To acknowledge means to care about what someone thinks. We should care about what God thinks of our plans, just as we would care about what a close friend thinks. We should discuss everything with Him in a conversational manner, just as we would with a spouse or close friend.
When Abraham heard about the devastation God planned to release against Sodom and Gomorrah, he “came near and said, ‘Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?’” (Genesis 18:23, NKJV). Just as God had shared His intentions with Abraham because they were friends, Abraham “came near” to God and questioned His intentions—because they were friends. They had a relationship in which they could communicate freely; they could talk openly. Abraham was so confident in God’s friendship with him that he questioned God Almighty! That’s intimacy; that’s security in a relationship.
The story is recorded in Genesis 18:17–33, but you may already know how it ends: Abraham and God continued their dialog. Abraham prayed and interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God to withhold judgment against the sinful cities so the righteous people who lived there would not suffer the punishment due the wicked. He started by asking God not to destroy the cities if He could find fifty righteous people in them, but then Abraham realized that might not be possible. After quite a bit of going back and forth, Abraham finally asked God to spare them for the sake of only ten righteous people—and God agreed. Why was Abraham able to intercede with such boldness? Because he knew God was his friend and he appealed to Him on the basis of that relationship.
You
Just as God shared His plans with Abraham, He will share things with you—His heart, His desires, His purposes and intentions—when you are His friend. He will give you understanding and insight into what is happening in your life and tell you what to do about it. He will lead you and help you be prepared for the future. If you are God’s friend, you do not have to be caught off guard or ambushed by your circumstances. You can be informed and ready—because you are a friend of God. He may not reveal everything you would like to know exactly when you would like to know it, but He will give you understanding as you patiently trust Him.
You may be asking, “How do I get to be God’s friend?” According to John 15:15, you already are. In this verse, Jesus said to His disciples, “I have called you My friends.. . .#8221; If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a modern-day disciple and you are His friend. As is the case with any friendship, you can be a casual friend or you can be a close, intimate personal friend. Your friendship with God grows and develops just as your friendships with other people grow and develop. Just as a natural friendship requires time and energy to develop, so does your relationship with God.
One of the best ways to ensure a deepening friendship with God is to have a heart that wants to obey Him.
One of the best ways to ensure a deepening friendship with God is to have a heart that wants to obey Him. When our hearts are pure, tender toward His leading and eager to respond obediently, we are in a terrific position to experience God’s friendship. I do not mean that we must be doing everything right or that we try to be perfect all the time; I simply mean that we are not purposefully disobedient, rebellious, hard-hearted, or always trying to see what God will let us get away with. I mean that we willingly put His desires before our own desires because we love Him and we trust Him as our friend—and we know that what He wants is always best for us anyway.
As you grow in your friendship with God, never forget that your relationship is based on who He is and not on what He can do for you. Keep seeking His presence, not His presents; keep seeking His face, and not His hand. You must know that one of the hindrances to a vibrant, maturing friendship with God is allowing ourselves to focus on the benefits of friendship with God instead of focusing on Him as our friend. As human beings, we do not appreciate finding out that certain people want to be our friends because we have an ability to get them something they want; we feel valued when we know people want to be friends with us simply because of who we are and just because they actually like us—the same principle applies with God.
Friendship Breeds Boldness
When we begin to understand our friendship with God and see ourselves as His friends, our prayers become more Spirit-led, more faith-filled, and much bolder. Jesus told a story in Luke 11, immediately after He taught His disciples to pray using what we call the Lord’s Prayer. We can surmise that He was using the story to illustrate His lesson on prayer. He said: “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and will say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves [of bread], for a friend of mine who is on a journey has just come, and I have nothing to put before him; and he from within will answer, Do not disturb me; the
door is now closed, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and supply you [with anything]? I tell you, although he will not get up and supply him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his shameless persistence and insistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:5–8).
Notice that the man who needs bread only gets it “because of his shameless persistence and insistence.” We will only “shamelessly persist” with our friends—because friendship makes us bold, and the more we grow and progress in our friendships, the bolder we can be. Through the writer to the Hebrews, God invites us to “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16, NKJV).
We are not bold with people we barely know. For example, let’s say that Dave and I go to a restaurant for dinner and have a server named John. When John approaches our table for the first time, he introduces himself to us. Dave does not say, “Nice to meet you, John. This is my wife, Joyce, and she needs a ride to work next Thursday morning. Would you mind taking her?” We are friendly to our server, but we are not in the kind of friendship with him that would give us the boldness to ask him for a favor of that nature.