MessianicMusings.com

Well, here we are a few months after Stan finished up his prayer study and, fortunately, I am still bearing the fruit of the commitments I’ve made to more regular, longer and deeper times of prayer. Do I still have room to grow in prayer?

But is my prayer life a lot better than it’s ever been? Yes.

I’m grateful for what Stan taught in that study and for the benefits it has reaped; being able to more clearly hear directly from God. When you hear from God directly, it’s less common to “wonder” what God’s will for you is. He makes it clear for himself and seeking advice from others is far less necessary.

I would encourage anyone seeking to know God better to spend at least an hour a day in prayer, as close to every day as you can manage to achieve. And challenge yourself to achieve it. There’s no substitute for intimacy with the creator of the universe.

Before I started the Prayer and Intercession study Stan is teaching, my prayer life left a lot to be desired. While I prayed, I didn’t pray long or often enough to even meet my own expectations. Now, as of the past week and counting today, I reached a new achievement: six out of seven days, I’ve made time for God.

And I don’t spend this prayer time doing esoteric stuff, either; instead, I am concentrating on improving my relationship with the L-RD and seeking His direction for my life.

This past week, in fact, I had a really different but enjoyable experience where, during the entire hour or so I was in prayer, all I could really do is concentrate on being given a glimmer of the holiness of God. Each night, I don’t know what to expect necessarily, but I’m certainly feeling better about my pursuit of closeness to the L-RD, even though I still have plenty of room to grow.

As I look forward to Rabbi Stan’s new study on prayer and intercession, I’m reminded of a fact he shared from the bema once. According to some research study, the national average for the amount of time a pastor or rabbi spends in prayer each week is… about five minutes.

Not per day. Per week.

Now, to do prayer correctly, it takes time. At least an hour a day. Sometimes more. And that’s just to run out of words so that you can spend some time waiting for the L-RD to talk back to you and direct you toward His will, rather than your own.

So if the average pastor or rabbi spends only about five minutes a week actually praying, how “anointed” are his sermons, really? How God-directed are his messages?

Is it any wonder more sermons are “ripped from the headlines of today’s newspapers” than they are “inspired by the whole word of God?” The average pastor or rabbi probably spends more time browsing the day’s newspaper, or news Web site, than he does speaking with the L-RD! That means a believing sales guy could easily spend more time in prayer than the man behind the bema.

Do I need to improve my own prayer life? You bet. By a lot. But I am relieved to know that, as much as I need to improve it, I am already a healthy margin better than “average.”