Week 10 ~ Bible Study Blog

Week 10 ~ Acting in His Perect Timing
Praying Efficiently ~ Spending time in prayer is necessary to know Jesus in a more intimate way.  Learning to pray efficiently is valuable, as we can accomplish more in the least amount of time. God knows our thoughts and we must have faith to believe that He will act.  This removes the burdon of wasted repetition when we pray.  Why do we think we have to repeat our prayers over and over?  Remember when you kept asking your mother for another cookie, and she finally said, "I heard you the first time."  That's why the Holy Spirit is given: to make our prayers effective and efficient.
     I must sound like I was a Christian with my head in the sand, but growing up I was never taught the different types of prayer.  In 1991-92 when we attended Word of Life Bible Center in Uppsala, Sweden, our prayer school teacher was a prayer warrior.  To this day, Mary Alice Isleib sees miracles wherever her ministry takes her.  She wrote a book in 1992 about the different types of prayer: the prayer of faith; prayer of dedication, consecration and submission; prayer of praise and worship; prayer of agreement; and the prayer of repentence.  You can study these on your own, or perhaps we can have a study on the different types of prayer at a later time.

The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.  James 5:15

     After Rob and I had been in Bible school in Sweden for three months, we knew we wanted to go to Israel after graduation. We didn't have the money, so we prayed. By February, we had the money. Then in March after taking our missions class, we had a deep desire to be on the month-long trip through Siberia.  We prayed, and by June, we had the money.  These were not relaxing, fun-in-the-sun type vacations (although we had a few sprinkles here and there); these were intense, fast-paced trips that changed our lives, but if we had we not prayed for the finances, we would have never experienced these life-changing journies.
     Prayer makes God's power available; it releases God's power into the earth.  There are times and situations when we are called to pray without ceasing.  We'll know those times by the burden we feel in our heart.  Pray until the release comes.  Most important, thank Him and praise Him before the answer comes, and when it does come, thank Him and praise Him some more!
     Do you have a prayer request that you are waiting for the answer?  Have you had a recent answer to prayer lately that you are still praising Him for?  Let it be our heart's desire to have at least one a day--answered prayer is better than any vitamin we can take!
Oceans of blessings, Sharron