What I Wish Everyone Knew About Prayer?

The Reason Is Because Normal Prayer Isn’t Enough

The Reason for a Thirty Thousand Foot Prayer – Part 7

Before we continue with Nehemiah, let me take a moment to interject something very important here. Nehemiah never had intentions on becoming a person of prayer. He wasn’t called to pray. He wasn’t a temple worker or in full-time ministry. So from this moment forward, I’m not speaking to people who are called to pray or have a gift to pray or those who already enjoy it, this content is for anyone, especially those who don’t have a formal knowledge of the subject. However, let me tell you a little bit about me.

A Pray-er
I hate to say this, but I am realizing more and more that my gift to the world (my purpose) is to tackle the subject of prayer. I never wanted to be considered one of those weirdos that prayed all the time. I definitely didn’t want to spend all my time in prayer meetings and services, but the fact is I like to pray. I found out, like Nehemiah did, that my prayer isn’t answered from thirty-thousand-feet, it’s answered when you bring it down to the ground, down from not impacting your life but to the place where it touches your life directly. I have found that prayer doesn’t have to be like what you and I picture it, an all night prayer meeting. I believe prayer is far better.

So, I am on a life’s mission, a journey to find out as much as I can about this subject. I wish to learn and know all there is about “prayer”. The Lord is urging me to take my time and make this my life’s journey. He has always and I mean always had an audible voice in my life. Since the time I was a young boy, I remember always being a “pray-er”. Yes, a “pray-er”, one who prays. I want to remove the bad stigma that’s been assessed on prayer. If prayer is something that seems weird, strange, and tasking, you’ve been doing it wrong. Prayer is not so weird and it’s no different than listening to someone who is talking to you on the phone. Keep in mind that you only hear one side of the conversation when you listen to someone else pray.

As for Nehemiah, his prayer times didn’t involve an audible response (as recorded in the Bible), but as the help needed as he requested it, which you’ll see later.

The Prayer Evolution
Back in the early 80’s, mobile “cell” phones were introduced commercially. My wife and I laugh about this now, but until mobile phones were invented, people used what we call today “land-lines”. She can remember the concept of “party-lines” where more than one home would share a single phone line. You could at times pick up your home phone and it would be in use by someone else. You would just have to keep checking back or interrupt the people on the call to say you need to make a call. Today, most people have their own mobile device, many have two, which allows them to do much more than make a call.

“GOD’s there, listening for all who pray [call Him] , for all who pray [call Him] and mean it.” – bible.com/97/psa.145.18.msg

Like the telephone, I believe prayer too has evolved. The medium might be the same, from your thoughts to His thoughts, but there are many ways to use the medium. Think of prayer as the medium that transfers your thoughts to His thoughts and His thoughts back to your thoughts. In simple terms “communicating.” Recall I made an earlier distinction between prayer and communicating with God.

“You can talk to God without praying, but you can’t pray without talking to Him.”

If time has shown us how our methods of communicating have changed and improved, so have the methods to communicate in the exercise of prayer. The times we live in is called the information age and information propels us forward at a rapid rate. With this information you have, there’s a wealth of knowledge and things to discuss with God that people didn’t always have and I believe He’s excited about this advancement. He wants to engage with you on a higher level and the time to do so is now. That’s what it means to be uncommon, or no-longer-common.

The sad part is, the church often falls behind the times and tries to remain dated, less technologically advanced, and even prehistoric. God’s not a prehistoric God. In fact, He is past, He is present, and He is future. He’s seen the past, He knows the present and He invented the future and all that comes with it. What are you waiting on to step up to the next level of communicating with Him? Don’t allow ancient traditions to hold you back, because at some point in time those traditions were cutting edge and now we can again be cutting edge even in prayer.

Nehemiah had no recipe for how to pray his thirty-thousand-foot prayer. In fact, he got it wrong from the start and a lot of time passed before he saw the error in his ways and tried a different route. BTW – that’s called repentance. He changed his direction; his way of doing things.

Prayer is Enjoyable
Prayer is in no way an undesirable task. If it is, you’ve never been in the presence of God. Get it out of your head, everything and anything you’ve seen that represents prayer in an undesirable light. In fact, when done correctly, not only will you have serious conversations with God, meetings with God, shed tears with God, but also laugh and joke around with The perfect Father.

When you see how Tamia and I interact, you get a small imperfect representation of how a father and daughter relate. While others see a great father daughter relationship, it has no comparison to how God can relate to you. When you interact with God, it’s not flawed. He doesn’t misunderstand you and He never interacts with you outside of His love for you. He is clear about one thing, in His presence there is “joy”. There is excitement, great enthusiasm (I call it “effervescence”), and experiences that await unlike any other. You get to experience something that’s literally out of this world.

Stay with me, as we return to Nehemiah and all he has to offer when it comes to his experiences with communicating with God in the installments that follow.

Questions: What are your thoughts on prayer? Let me hear some real answers.

Leave a comment below. I’d really like to know.

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