Paul Washer on Prayer

In my continuing study on prayer, I thought I’d share what I gleaned from a video that I happened upon. I found an excellent video on my YouTube feed with Paul Washer speaking about prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit of Christ. As best I can tell, he was speaking here at a past G3 conference (There are a few that I found but here is the link to the specific video on which I’m writing:  The Importance of Prayer).

He brings out many points, but two were very helpful to me:

  1. There may be seasons where your prayers are longer and more fervent than others.
  2. Your prayer life does not have to look like the prayer life of another saint.

I feel guilty about the length of my prayers lately. I am concerned that I am not as fervent as I have been in the past. There have been some occasions in the past when I prayed longer upon first getting up in the morning. Mr Washer speaks of a season where he would pray all night and where his prayers were especially fervent. While he doesn’t give any excuse for not spending time with God in daily prayer, he says that he hasn’t had a season like that since then. The Holy Spirit guides and directs our time with Him. The Lord enabled him to pray like that before special times in his ministry. It was helpful to know that it’s okay that we don’t always pray for three hours at a time with tears flowing!

Mr. Washer also cautions against measuring our prayer life according to the standard of another man and points out that some saints may simply be more gifted in their prayer life. He gave the example that while every Christian should evangelize, not everyone evangelizes like Ray Comfort. (Ray Comfort – Living Waters ) He mentioned that there are many preachers, but not all are like Dr. Steven Lawson. ( Steven Lawson – OnePassion Ministries ) Perhaps it’s the same with prayer. We each have our own gifting from the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6 NIV)

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I’m also reminded that since God is sovereign and good and merciful to His children, we can pray *for* the ability to pray longer and more fervently. We can ask that the Lord would give us more of a heart of prayer and that He would allow us to feel more of His presence as we pray. As for feeling more of His presence: I know that we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7); however, we also have not because we ask not (James 4:2b), so I’ll be asking the Lord to help transform my affections and emotions!

 


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