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December 18, 2017

Ep.1000: Will Prayer Change Your Life?

How prayer and meditation can influence our daily lives

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CHAPTERS

[00:18:16]
Is prayer an entitlement to all or a privilege for a few?


[00:35:35]
God hears us when we seek Him. What other things should we focus on, even outside of prayer?


[00:54:43]
God helps those who seek Him - what about when we mess up?


[01:11:53]
Will prayer change your life?


Theme Scripture: Psalm 143:1

Prayer is a staple of religion.  If you don’t follow any particular religion then perhaps you meditate. The point is, humans by and large are tuned to opening their minds to some kind of external power or tranquility.  For many, this opening of their minds provides a sense of security and peace as they feel heard, accepted and cared for.  So, is prayer a commodity that should be passed out to and encouraged among the masses?  Is it an elixir that can be taken to cure what ails you?  How does prayer even work?  What are its key ingredients and what is its process – or is there one?  Can prayer and meditation change your life?  What should we be praying for?

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Prayer is such an enormous subject with so many adaptations that we need to take a breath and just focus on a few simple aspects.  I figure the best approach would be to directly deal with the primary question: “Will prayer change your life?” with one minor adjustment – “Will prayer change most people’s lives?”  As I see it, the answer to this question is a resounding “probably not!”  Why say such a thing?  That, my friend, is a really important question, so let’s go there…

Prayer and meditation probably won’t change the lives of most people because they do not understand and are not truly willing to understand what the basic fundamentals of prayer are.  For starters, prayer is entering into the presence of the Almighty Creator of all things.  He is unfathomably above us, He is incomprehensibly more powerful than we are and He is assuredly and eternally wiser than we will ever be.  For any of us to go before such sovereign majesty and ask for stuff or specifically desired results without some basis for that relationship besides, “God, I believe in You and this is what I need or want,” is simply a recipe for disappointment.

In the Bible, many of the 150 Psalms are prayers of one kind or another.  This is really good news, for when we combine what we can learn about prayer through these Psalms with what Jesus taught us, we can actually step well beyond wishful prayers based in ignorant desire into the world of praying with purpose, passion and principle.

In the Psalms, David teaches us that the first step in this journey is the acceptance and adoption of humility.  As simple as this may sound, it is actually an insurmountable hurdle for most.  Accepting humility is common – we readily accept the premise that God is bigger and better than we are, but it only begins there.  Adopting humility is the hard part for it is here that we must own the responsibility of actually being utterly humble in our everyday existence.  Not easy, not fun and not often a followed through practice, yet it represents an irreplaceable step in effective prayer.

Prayer can be life-changing if we change our lives enough to give it room to grow and flourish.  Learn how to make room and how to use both prayer and meditation to revolutionize your own existence.  Check out our December 18, 2017 podcast, “Will Prayer Change Your Life?” and see what needs to change so things can change!

(Theme photo courtesy of Flickr)

 

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