Written by Sarah Ann E.

 

 

When I think of prayer, my first response is “Father, help me to pray more.”  How I long to have a deeper prayer life.  I do strive to have a devoted prayer life, but it is not an easy thing to do.  I am far from having a perfect prayer life.  It is my desire that, especially through this e-magazine, we will spur each other on to desire a deeper relationship with our Lord through our prayer life.

 

I started studying verses on prayer back in June.  I was struggling with praying for what I knew the Lord wanted me to pray for that day.  I found it hard to make myself concentrate on praying for a long period of time.  My mind would start wandering to the LIW work I needed to do or other things that I had to do that day.  Yet, the times that I made myself concentrate and pray for what the Lord wanted me to, I left my morning devotions spiritually refreshed and ready to face my day with the Lord’s help!

 

My pastor preached a message a couple of weeks ago on prayer.  He introduced us to a book entitled Method in Prayer, by W. Graham Scroggie.  I was convicted by the quotes that my pastor read from it.  I knew that I needed to read this little book in preparation for this e-magazine.  Currently, I am reading it and I am spurred on to desire a stronger prayer life.  I would strongly encourage you to get a copy of this book.  It will greatly enhance your prayer life!!!  I would like to share with you a little bit from this book.  I pray that it will both convict you and spur you on to a deeper prayer life, as it has done for me.

 

There are two very important things needed to make our prayer life fruitful.  The first thing is time.  We cannot have a blessed prayer life without making and taking the time to pray.  Most of us live very busy lives.  We are constantly going here and there, serving this person and that ministry.  But our work for the Lord is in vain if we are not bathing it in prayer, both before and after we serve.  We will make time for what we want and we must make time for pray.  Believe me, I am “preaching” to myself.  I have not even come close to making enough time for prayer.  We are in this together!

 

The second important factor in our prayer life is how we pray.  W. Graham Scroggie points out the importance of praying back Scripture.  He says, “We turn, therefore, to the Bible to learn what prayer is, and, also, to make it the medium of our thought and utterance.  This latter point is most important, and determines the order of our devotions—not prayer and then the Word, but the Word and then prayer; the former being the medium through which the latter is conceived and expressed.”  I do not know if you have ever tried to take a couple verses and turn them into a prayer to your Lord.  I did this on occasion before I read this book.  After I read of this method, I decided to try it.  It has been so refreshing and really brought my spirit right into the presence of my Lord. 

 

George Muller said that, “the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord.”  He goes on to say that he used to get up in the morning and spend much time in prayer.  At times, it took him an hour of praying on his knees before his spirit was aligned with His Lord.  Later, he started reading and meditating on the Word when he first awoke.  “I scarcely even suffer now in this way.  For my heart being nourished by the truth . . . I speak to my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am, and unworthy of it) about the things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.”  His priority “was to begin to meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse to get blessing out of it . . . for the sake of obtaining good for my own soul.”

 

Prayer and Bible meditation go hand in hand.  If you are not in the Word each day, then you will not be able to have a devoted prayer life.  Our prayers need to be based on our Lord’s Word.  It will adjust our spirits so that we can immediately and boldly approach our Lord’s throne.  I would encourage you to try this method for a couple of days this week.  Just take a few verses from your Scripture reading and pray for whatever and whoever the Lord lays on your mind through that verse. 

 

 

Method in Prayer by W. Graham Scroggie

 

 

 

 

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