I regularly begin my times of prayer with Scripture. And I often pray using Scripture as the foundation and content of my prayers. I often find my own soul strengthened and refreshed even as I pray for God to strengthen and refresh the minds, hearts and bodies of those I am praying for! I am finding prayer more and more a blessed labor and sweet service for others. “For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.” Daniel 9:18b-19 I often pray this very prayer and personalize it for me and those I am praying for. “And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics and paralytics, and he healed them.” Matthew 4:23-24 I often pray through these verses as well. I do, in prayer, just what these folks did for those they loved when they knew Jesus was near. I too bring before Him all the sick I know, by name, and pray that He heal, comfort, strengthen, and sustain them in their trials. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) I know I am not praying to a reluctant Savior, but One “who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34) even as I pray. “But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Matthew 6:4 This verse is a chest of treasure! We are praying, not to some distant, aloof, monarch too busy running the universe to hear our concerns. We are praying to our Everlasting Father, Who sees every tear we shed, hears every word we pray and understands every groan or sigh we utter. Not only that, but we are promised a reward, an answer, a response from God, our Father, “who knows what we need before we ask him” (Matt. 6:8). When I am praying I will appeal to God…I will pray: “Lord, here I am in secret. You see and hear my every prayer. Would you please do as You have promised: reward…answer my prayers on behalf of those I bring before You now”. Prayer: what a priceless privilege, what a blessed labor, what a sweet service. And let’s remember this, dear ladies, as we pray: “Prayer is never out of season: in summer and in winter its merchandise is precious. Prayer gains audience with heaven in the dead of night, in the midst of business, in the heat of noonday, in the shades of evening. In every condition, whether of poverty, or sickness, or obscurity, or slander, or doubt, your covenant God will welcome your prayer and answer it from His holy place. Nor is prayer ever futile. True prayer is evermore true power. You may not always get what you ask, but you shall always have your real wants supplied. When God does not answer His children according to the letter, He does so according to the spirit. If thou askest for coarse meal, wilt thou be angered because He gives thee the finest flour? If thou seekest bodily health, shouldst thou complain if instead thereof He make thy sickness turn to the healing of spiritual maladies?...This evening, my soul, forget not to offer thy petition and request, for the Lord is ready to grant thee thy desires.” November 3, Morning and Evening, C.H. Spurgeon And “We may be sure of this, and we must pray in the assurance of it, in a full assurance of this faith, that wherever God finds a praying heart, he will be found a prayer-hearing God: though the voice of prayer be a low voice, a weak voice, yet…it is a voice that God will hear, that he will hear with pleasure, it is his delight and that he will return a gracious answer to; he has heard thy prayers, he has seen thy tears…God does hear our voice, and will not turn away our prayer, or his mercy.” The Secret of Communion with God, Matthew Henry, pg. 12
