LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!
Our daily sessions of prayer should include worshiping Him, thanking Him, rehearsing before Him our needs, and asking to know His desires and His plans and His assignments for us. After all, He knows all things: He knows OUR needs! We need to know more and more about HIS desires!
Sometimes I have asked Him HOW to express my family’s needs—to be appropriately stated from His perspective. One need has involved housing: knowing we needed to move, but not knowing WHERE. We’ve moved 13 times in our married life and itinerant ministry base locations…
One time I was led to ask Him this way: “Lord, if you have another place for us to live, please BRING THE HOUSE TO US!” Within a few days, a phone call “out of the blue” from a contractor began a remarkable chain of events, and a few months later we bought our first brand new house. The details are so amazing that I must include that complete story in a book in progress….
Years later it was time to move again, and this time I was led to ask, “Lord, I don’t even know what part of the country is Your will where we may relocate. Or why. So Lord, please PUT MY NAME on the house You have for us, and as You identify it, we will pursue each step of the move.” Soon, I received a phone call from a dear friend who announced that he was cutting back on his farming due to economic difficulties. The house where his foreman and family had lived was to be sold and occupied. He said, “I told the agent that if my friend Phil Freeman wants that house, I will continue to supply the water from my well. But if anyone else buys it, they must dig their own well.”
I asked him, “Are you telling me that there is a file on that property with a notation of MY NAME on it?” He responded, “That’s EXACTLY what I’m telling you!” We pursued that project, and were enabled to buy the property! Every detail fell into place just like the other move!
When you don’t know WHAT TO ASK, or WHY, or what QUESTIONS to put into words, simply ask Him to help you phrase your request in His terms. “Lord, TEACH ME how to pray, what to say!” The results will be wonderful, the credit and glory will all go to Him, and you will have a TESTIMONY like many we have collected for our book!
“For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.” Romans 8:26
“May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14