Facilitation

Link: Core Values
Focus: Prayer (6/7)
Day: 14/95
Pathway summary: Being faith-filled, fervent, continual, and heartfelt in my expressions, petitions, and supplications to God.
Justification: (2 Timothy 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 6:5-13; Mark 9:23)
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Setup:

What would a life filled with an abundance of prayer look like? Is it possible to have an excess of conversation with God? 

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Prep:

Earlier I considered the aggregate impact of not praying and made the claim that most of the problems we have as individuals (or otherwise) stem from insufficient prayer coverage. This is the counter to that.

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Execution:

I started with prayer and began studying scripture for aspects to prayer I may have missed with the intent of capturing what a life-fully-enriched-with-prayer would look like.
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Day 14 Conclusions / Thoughts

Cursory observations and conclusions regarding prayer from scripture:

• Matthew 6 is absolutely rife with content and context
• Romans 8 teaches us that we need help praying
• We are to pray without fainting (stopping), pray for ourselves and others, and pray without the intent of being rewarded
• That prayer doesn't necessarily protect you from temptation (in fact you're to guard against it when you're praying)
• Righteousness comes from praying
• Usage of prayer to share one's faults can confer healing
• Most of the profound capabilities of believers resulted simply from faithful people praying

So the concept of righteousness is close to my heart - I've prayed over and dwelt on "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." And I've wondered long days at who is righteous.  It seemed to me, before this bible study, that nobody knows if they're righteous - but that, if you are righteous, those items over which you pray will be impacted. Not because a righteous person is better - but, rather, the righteous person were likely given the desires of their heart AND God has made provision for those in that domain to succeed.

I think the heart of the impact of this much prayer is simply captured in the word "sufficient". If we are asking for how much, God has answered in two ways. The one, in the command to "pray without ceasing" - sufficient would be "constantly". The second answer is one supplied by Jesus in response to Peter - if you're keeping track, every single offence / need for prayer corresponds to 490 times you are to forgive/pray for such things.  Thus, isn't about accurate prayer accounting (in spite of how interesting a prayer accountant would be). It is about prayer density.

Which leads me to the initial heart of the post - prayer is a facilitation mechanism.  Through prayer we can see God's promises fulfilled, we have access to miracles, and we can have our heart transforms to be more Christ-like.  I find this last profound. In one fell swoop, sufficient, earnest prayer provides the ability to have a changed heart AND the confidence to understand we can be of use to God.

How do you renew your mind, be actually transformed, draw close to Christ, know His will, directly and indirectly impact loved ones and complete strangers, and acquire tools which will help you personally resolve conflict, acquire guidance and sufficiency on how to seek God?

Pray