prayer coach

David started out with great passion but in the end of his life, he allowed trauma to shock him into passivity. We all need to come out of passivity and speak life into our world.

For forty days the Israelites were kept in a prison of fear through the taunts of Goliath. One thing that is missed in this story is that the Israelites remained in fear because Saul offered no encouragement to their situation. His inaction led to a bubble of fear over his troops. David comes on the scene and bursts that bubble by speaking hope.

Some fifty years later one of David’s sons rapes one of his daughters. This sets up hatred between two brothers to the point one kills the other. The murderer flees to his mother’s hometown and hides for three years. Both the rape and the murder makes David mad and sad, but there is no record of him doing anything. His silence allowed things to fester. David’s children are left to figure out life on their own.

Joab wakes David from his slumber to go retrieve his son from excile. However David does not allow this son, Absalom, to see him. Left on his own, Absalom goes down the path of attempting to take the kingdom from his father. How much of this could have been avoided if only David engaged in their lives?

Avoidance does not make our problems go away. We only delay the inevitable and often make the confrontation larger because of the passage of time. God gave us the Comforter because His plan was to call us places where we would have to deal with things that were uncomfortable to us. If we are more than conquerers than we need to be in some kind of battle.

I wanted to write about how people view God’s thoughts of them and thought this video would be a good introduction. This video is hilarious, but exposes what many think is real, even if carried to an extreme. You might have to listen closely to some of it because of the sound quality. Enjoy!

This video was created by Vintage 21, a church in Raleigh.

• “The very act of prayer is a blessing.”
• “To pray is to enter the treasure-house of God and to gather riches out of an inexhaustible storehouse.”
• “To pray is to grasp heaven in one’s arms,
  to embrace the Deity within one’s soul,
  and to feel one’s body made a temple of the Holy Spirit.”
• “You are before the Lord; let your words be few, but let your heart be fervent.”
• “You will observe that the desire to commune with God
  is intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation.”
• “In all states of dilemma or of difficulty, prayer is an available source. The ship of prayer may sail through all temptations, doubts and fears, straight up to the throne of God; and though she may be outward bound with only griefs, and groans, and sighs, she shall return freighted with a wealth of blessings!”
• “The condition of the church may be very accurately gauged by its prayer meetings. So is the prayer meeting a grace-ometer, and from it we may judge of the amount of divine working among a people. If God be near a church, it must pray. And if He be not there, one of die first tokens of His absence will be a slothfulness in prayer!”
• “Prayer is the best response to hatred.”
• “It is well said that neglected prayer is the birth-place of all evil.”
• “Prayer is an art which only the Spirit can teach us. He is the giver of all prayer.”
• “No man can progress in grace if he forsakes prayer.”
• “He who knows how to overcome with God in prayer has heaven and earth at his disposal.”

• Prayer is the divine equalizer. Some preach, other teach, a few sing publicly, but all can pray.
  
• The greatest blow sent Satan-ward is made by weeping warriors of prayer.
  
• The greatest hindrance to effective prayer is sin. Satan’s greatest goal is to keep us from our knees.
  
• The heartbeat of intercession is servanthood.
  
• To pray with bitterness toward fellowmen nullifies hours on our knees.

image courtesy of How It Should Have Ended

I heard a great analogy from my former worship pastor Stephen Roach that related to the last post. He shared how in the book version of The Wizard of Oz Dorothy was talked to the Wicked Witch of the West by the flying monkeys. When the witch saw what Dorothy had in the gifts from the good witch, she became very afraid to the point wanting to run. But then she saw into Dorothy’s eyes and could tell that she did not know what she had. The witch knew that she could still make Dorothy her slave because Dorothy did not know how to use the power she had been given. The only thing the witch could do was to deceive Dorothy in thinking she did not have the power that had been given to her.

Sounds vaguely familiar to our enemy.

• [Satan] laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.
• Saul of Tarsus had been a praying man all his life, but it was not until then that he began to pray as God interprets prayer.
• It is wonderful what God can do with a broken heart, if He gets all the pieces.
• No reasoned philosophy of prayer ever taught a soul to pray.
• Nothing would turn the nation back to God so surely and so quickly as a Church that prayed and prevailed. The world will never believe in a religion in which there is no supernatural power. A rationalized faith, a socialized Church, and a moralized gospel may gain applause, but they awaken no conviction and win no converts.
• Oh, to be known at the throne.
• One of the first things He commands is that there shall be a place of prayer.
• Prayer gives vision in the secret place, intelligence in work, sense in judgment, courage in temptation, tenacity in adversity, and joyous assurance in the will of God.
• Prayer in secret is life finding expression in the realized Presence of God our Father.
• Prayer is the acid test of devotion.
• Prayers are measured neither by time nor by number, but by intensity.
• Prayers counted on a rosary are easier than the prayers of a soul poured out in unrestrained speech to God.
• A season of silence is the best preparation for speech with God.
• Communion is deeper than theology.
• God wills that men should pray everywhere, but the place of His glory is in the solitudes, where He hides us in the cleft of the rock, and talks with man face to face as a man talks with his friend.

• Every need is a call to prayer.
  
• A Christian should know more about the operation of his spirit than about the activity of his mind.
  
• A person who wholly follows the Lord is one who believes that the promises of God are trustworthy, that He is with His people, and that they are well able to overcome.
  
• A spiritual Christian must experimentally know the Holy Spirit in his spirit.
  
• Faith looks not at what happens to him but at Him Whom he believes.
  
• How true it is that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit intellect not only is undependable but also extremely dangerous, because it often confuses the issue of right and wrong.
  
• How we need the Lord to enlighten our eyes that we may comprehend afresh the importance of prayer and know anew its value. Furthermore, we must recognize that had Satan not deceived us we would not be neglecting prayer so much. We should therefore watch and discover therein all the various wiles of Satan. We will not allow him to delude us any more in relaxing in prayer.
  
• If we were more disposed today to mind the voice of conscience we would not be as defeated as we are.
  
• Many are so preoccupied with work that they allow little time for prayer.
  
• Many confuse understanding with believing.
  
• Negligence in prayer withers the inner man.
  
• Nowadays Christians appear to treat prayer as a means to accomplish their aims and ideas.  If they possessed just a little deeper understanding, they would recognize that prayer is but man uttering to God what is God’s will.
  

• It is a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times.
• We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action, as by prayer in its season.
• You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of.
• We ought to act with God in the greatest simplicity, speak to Him frankly and plainly, and implore His assistance in our affairs.
• A little lifting of the heart suffices; a little remembrance of God, one act of inward worship are prayers which, however short, are nevertheless acceptable to God.
• We are made for God alone, who can only be pleased when we turn away from ourselves to devote ourselves to Him.
• In continuing the practice of conversing with God throughout each day, and quickly seeking His forgiveness when I fell or strayed, His presence has become as easy and natural to me now as it once was difficult to attain.
• God alone is capable of making Himself known as He really is.
• People seek methods of learning to know God. Is it not much shorter and more direct to simply do everything for the love of Him? There is no finesse about it. One only has to do it generously and simply.
• Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God.
• The most excellent method of going to God is that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing people but purely for the love of God.