• The Rarety of Real Prayer
PRAYER IS IN no way ‘manoeuvering’ God into position for the desires of our will; it is God positioning us to where He communicates His eternal purposes that gives birth to true intercession and that kind of prayer is extremely rare today.
– M.A. Williams
Posted on May 3, 2013, in Pearls of Wisdom and tagged God positioning us, God's eternal purposes, intercession, Mark Anthony Williams, Pearls of Wisdom, prayer, rare prayer, The Rarety of Real Prayer. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
Shade of the Moriah Tree
Shade of the Moriah Tree 
Good Morning. Thank you for the reflective statements on Prayer. Prayer is so much more than what we conceive it to be, but I must say that I really like your statement. Traditionally, it has been said that prayer is communication with God, The word communicate infers that prayer is an act that is reciprocal; it is the process by which we enter into intercourse with the eternal God. Then prayer becomes a transforming experience whereby we have taste of God’s presence and now see from God’s perspective.
Unfortunately, very few of us encounter God in prayer because we become satisfied with our own performance. We do not seem to be able to understand that God does not want our performance, he only wants us. I mean the real broke down and rag muffin us. But we are so busy wanting to be heard by God, we do not give God the opportunity to speak. So, we miss the experience of communing with our gracious Father. When we get desperate for audience with the Lord, we will enter all the way into prayer and be transformed by the encounter. We will ask, and continue to ask; we will seek and continue to seek; we will knock and continue to knock until the door has been opened. The door does not open by our performance. We are not able to forcefully open the door to the revelation of God’s divine presence in prayer. But, when we get beyond what we think, and our selfish desires to be heard by God, suddenly, the precious Holy Spirit leads us into that inner sanctum where we become consciously aware of the divine Presence of God in prayer. I refer to prayer as Holy Communion, Interludes of Oneness. Interludes of Oneness is God lifting the veil of our human experience to reveal the reality of his divine presence with us; it is a divine intervention, a momentary pause – ” preludes to the wonders that are yet to be set before those who have resolved their souls to submit to God’s will above their own.” When we have encountered God in prayer, we would have discovered that prayer is so much more than what we are able to articulate. I’m still trying to discover how to translate the mysterious wonders of heavenly language into common language that can be understood in human terms. Who would believe the report?
Again, thank you for the reflective statements on Prayer!
God bless you & keep you – in the Name of Jesus, Amen.
Thank you for your comment in which you raised quite a number of good points – a devotion in itself, which I enjoyed reading.
On this side of eternity none of us will ever translate the mysterious wonders of God’s revealed glory into human comprehensibility. John, the author of Revelation, used the beautiful symbolic language that only gives us an impression of the glory of God; Paul encountered visions of God that were unlawful to utter; Jonathan Edwards, that godly saint of a brilliant intellect, could only faintly and abstractly describe his encounter of the love, holiness and grandeur of God; A.W. Tozer lay prostrate, for hours, gazing on the majesty of God, but would not attempt to use frail human language to describe such awe.
We may write with our tears of what we see, hear and know, for having been overcome by the infinite profundity of God, but such ‘ink’ (tears) will not be accessible or clearly read by others; we each have to ‘taste and see the goodness of the Lord’ for ourselves that bears witness to others who encountered such. THAT is true fellowship and how we lack that today.
What we need so badly today is not a baptism of learning; (the devil will give all the titles and credentials desired); we need a baptism of prayer. Of course doctrine is absolutely imperative; it goes hand in hand with prayer. Interestingly, the devil is content for many to show great interest in theology (and I thank God for sound Biblical doctrine), but when a Christian prays aright, the devil shows a peculiar interest; such a Christian becomes a target. If he can prevent the Christian from praying in the Spirit, then no threat is posed. I’ve been to some churches where such teaching is impeccable, but the prayer meetings are as lifeless as a morgue and then we wonder evangelism is so ineffective! Then there other churches where the people don’t want theology. Their prayer meetings are ‘lively’ and charged with high emotion but the Holy Spirit is nowhere present and they have the audacity to say that God showed up!!
Robert Murray M’Cheyne said, “Pray in order to be taught how to pray…pray unto God as if no one is present but God.” God doesn’t want exhibitionism, but realism with Him.
Our generation needs to taste HOW real God is.
Thank you again, for your feedback.
God bless you for His glory.
Prayer in essence is when a humbled and surrendered soul crawls before a sovereign God and begs for HIS will to be done in a certain situation not his…
John Hyde, known as ‘Praying Hyde,’ is a great biography that I read years ago. We just don’t know what prayer is today; to many, it’s a duty and not life.
…or we squeeze in a couple of minutes from time to time to say Hi! God deserves our very best, not our left overs.
He deserves nothing but our very best – amen, Brother!