What do I pray, Lord? What is this about?

Pause. This is a really, really helpful place to begin — to ask God what to pray. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m looking at the equivalent of a two-headed rooster on my windowsill. I don’t know why God brought this up. So I ask him. Remember the disciples asking Jesus, “Teach us to pray”? Too many times we just jump in and start praying (making prayer speeches to God), and it doesn’t have much effect. We just sort of swing our sword around in the air randomly. Do this for a while and you’ll get the impression that prayer doesn’t really work. Or that God isn’t in it. Oh, it works, and he’s in it. When we pray effectively. John says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14–15).

That’s an awesome promise. If we pray according to God’s will, he hears us all right. And he answers our prayers. Isn’t that what you want? I sure do. I want to see my prayers work! I want to pray according to God’s will. But I don’t always know what that is, so, I ask. This has absolutely revolutionized the way I pray. And I am seeing a lot more results, just as the scripture promised.

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