There was a time in my life when I didn’t think God would listen to or hear my prayers. It seemed as though everyone around me prayed these eloquent, articulate prayers. Prayer warriors, whose prayers rolled off the tongue, smooth as butter, in rapid fire! Emphasizing certain words, punctuating for emphasis, and mastering the English language like nobody’s business! Impressive prayers that I just knew captivated God and moved Him to action! As a result of not seeming to have the prayer warrior skills, I found myself shying away from impromptu prayers and resorting to the Lord’s Prayer and the Book of Common Prayer for my time with God. Now do not get me wrong, both have impact in their respective ways and I still find solace in both. However, something was still missing in my prayer quest. I wanted to be a prayer warrior and pray those eloquent, punctuated, colorful prayers! I felt disappointed in myself. Was I not a good Christian? Did I really have a good relationship with God? I began to doubt myself until a shift occurred. The shift opened my eyes to the understanding of what it means when someone says God hears the prayers of His people.
There have been times in my life where I have found myself in despair and crying out to God. Asking, pleading for relief, release, restoration, and revival. To this day there are times when I do not even recall what was said. I just began to talk to Him. I wasn’t necessarily kneeling, prostrate, or with lifted hands in the air. I was in the back of an ambulance, in a hospital bed, an airplane in skies too choppy for conditions upon which to land safely. In other words, I was in a bind! Crying out and talking as though I were holding a conversation. As time passed, I was out of the hospital, healing was occurring, relief rested upon me, restoration encouraged me, and revival energized me. The fact that you are reading or hearing this experience, is evidence that the plane flying in choppy skies, landed, with a bang and a few bumps, but nevertheless, landed safely. I found myself thanking God for all these things and being amazed that He would grant these things without me even praying for them! Look at God! Or did I? Then it hit me! I remember when I cried out, I pleaded for relief, restoration, healing. “I want to be able to workout again!” “I want to get up out of the bed!” “I wanted the pain to go away!” I found myself back at the gym. I was able to rise each morning, pain free, from my bed. There were no eloquent, prayers with colorful words or emphasis on certain phrases or context. The words did not’ roll off my tongue like rapid fire, like butter. No! The words came out as they were…. just like that! The words came out, just as they were in the moment, and God heard my cry! Late in the midnight hour, He heard my pleas. Early in the morning, waking with pain, He heard my pain and He answered.
From our lips to God’s ear, our prayers are heard! Our words may not be crafted and woven together with eloquence. The words may not roll from our lips like butter. Nor will they come from our mouths like rapid fire. The key is to simply talk to Him! “Tell Him all about your troubles” as the song says. You may possess the gift of praying in poetic fashion. You may simply just be able to utter enough words to verbalize your needs or concerns. Either way, the petitions of the heart are heard! How the words are strung together are not so important as the integrity of the heart from which the request(s) flow. Talk to God, tell Him all about your troubles. He will hear your cry, and truly answer by and by. I know because the song just told me so.
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