Too Much to Say to God

When You Have Too Much to Say to God

The Business of Prayer – Part 2

Have you ever tried to pray for an hour? As I mentioned earlier, years ago there was this trend or church movement where everyone was talking about “praying for an hour.” The thought of praying for an hour can seem like a huge undertaking. There’s two problems with this thinking.

  1. We shouldn’t look at it as a timed act because you might not be able to dedicate an hour and you might have more than an hour’s worth to discuss with God. Who in their right mind would like to place God on a time limit?
  2. Praying should not be viewed as a task but rather for this set of lessons a meeting with God.

For those who’s objection to praying for any length of time greater than 15, this set of lessons will help you overcome such nonsense. Then there are those who wish for us to believe that they throughout the day are making all these requests to God. Regardless of what others would have us believe, know that God must be seen as a priority to you otherwise your requests might not be a priority to Him. By the way, the average person has too many distractions to focus on prayer arbitrarily through a given day. The scripture and the examples of prayer given to us, points to the fact that prayer is intentional. What I’d like you to consider is that in next level prayer you will desire to pray for hours or as the script says without ceasing. Is this really possible and can we look forward to it? The answer is yes and yes, but it takes going to the next level for such a shift in prayer to occur.

Each time Pamela and I would introduce a new topic like this, we try to obtain an upfront idea of what one might expect. What would a person expect from a lesson we’re calling “The Business of Prayer?” One response stood out more than any other and that was to increase the length and consistency of one’s prayers. With that said let me put to rest that one must pray for an hour. This message is not intended to get or persuade you to pray for an hour. The goal is to satisfy this expectation and make it as enjoyable as possible while doing it (praying that is).

Why pray for an hour?
I do have one thing to say about praying for an hour or any length of time greater than 15 minutes. Let me ask you this. Why can’t you pray for an hour? Why can’t you?! Here are the responses we’ve collected:

  • I lack the focus.
  • I don’t understand the purpose for long prayers.
  • I pray like others pray and when I finish, I’m finished.
  • I don’t believe we should treat God like He’s Santa Claus.
  • My asking / petitioning doesn’t take long for me to get it across.
  • I don’t know what to say.

While all these responses are valid, they have one thing in common, they are normal. Next level prayer is about getting beyond normal. Getting beyond these responses. For as long as you can remember, someone uses one of the excuses above to remain normal in the business of prayer. In order to go to the next level and receive next level results, you have to get beyond the normal excuses. (Ouch, that may have been me going to the left.)

Why can’t you pray for an hour?
I’ve often been asked the question, can I pray for an hour? In fact, I can pray for many hours. My response to such a question is this, why can’t you pray for an hour?

If you see your life as your business (You Inc.) given to you by God, then your prayer time should include reporting to Him how this business of yours is doing. It’s your job as a direct report to Jesus to answer how well your business is doing. It’s your job to get the feedback from Him on how to improve this business called your life. I’ll stop there and let you think about that. I’m coming back to that in a later installment. This is next level prayer!

The disciples happened to notice that Jesus on a regular basis would go to a special place to pray. He had a regular time and meeting location to speak with God. [1] It’s recorded that there were times that He met with God all night. [2] Listen to that. Not only did He pray for an hour, He prayed all night. When was the last time you prayed all night? And liked it? You see if you met with God like I do you’d like it. I’ll save this too for later so that I might stick to this opening topic.

Like I said, I was once told that we should pray for an hour each day. How can I pray for an hour, when I only have five minutes worth of things to say? That was the response. As I remember this, I have a goal to leave you with more than an hour’s worth to talk to God about in this set of messages. By the time we’re finished you will have more than enough to talk to God about that an hour just won’t do. If you recall as pray-ers, the Bible says to pray about everything. [3] I’m sure I’ve said this before. Have you ever tried to write down EVERYthing? How long would that take? Now what if you had to pray over EVERYthing? EVERY thing. How long would that take? When you look at it this way, you start to form a picture of prayer taking more time than you’ve been giving to it. This is exactly where I want you to be.

The goal is not to pray for a length of time, but rather to have enough you present to God that you run out of time. What if by the end of your allotted time, you’d have to ask God can you pick up there tomorrow? How do you think this would make God feel knowing you had so much to discuss with Him that you’re making plans to see Him again tomorrow? This is the business of prayer, next level prayer.

Question: what would it take to desire to talk to God more?

[1] Luke‬ ‭5:16‬ ‭KJV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed March 23, 2022, https://bible.com/bible/1/luk.5.16.KJV
[2] Luke‬ ‭6:12‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed March 23, 2022, https://www.bible.com/116/luk.6.12.nlt
[3] Philippians‬ ‭4:6-7‬ ‭NLT‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬, Bible.com, accessed March 23, 2022, https://bible.com/bible/116/php.4.6-7.NLT

All Scripture references used by permission, see our Scripture copyrights.

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