prayer meetings

     As I write this post I am at the Illinois Baptist State Association annual convention.  I also attended the pastor's conference before the convention started.  Don't you know there was a lot of hot air in that meeting!  It has been a while since I have been in such meetings and it was good to meet some of my fellow pastors and to hear their stories. 

     The theme of this year's pastor's conference was "prepare the way of the Lord."  The idea is that if we want to see revival in our lives, churches and country we must prepare the way of the Lord.  We talked about prayer, we talked about God's judgment and God's mercy. 

     One of the speakers talked about prayer and made the statement that we pray good, but we don't pray good enough.  These words struck me as I thought about prayer in my own life and even in the life of many churches.  He furthermore stated "If God answered all the prayers we pray in our prayer meetings will it cause our community to stand up and take notice.  Will it cause our nation to take notice?  Will it cause the nations to take notice?" 

      His point was that most of what we pray for is selfish and in reality do not have much impact on eternity.  We need to learn to pray differently and with increased passion.  One of the templates laid out for us to change our philosophy of prayer is to model our prayer after what Jesus prayed in John 17:1-5.  The basic idea of this prayer is that Jesus had a task that His Father had for him to do.  Jesus prayed "I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do."   We too have been given a task.  God has called us to do something for him, but too often our prayers do not reflect this task.

      Our speaker suggested our motives for praying had to change if we were going to experience the outpouring of God's spirit in our lives and churches.  He was not against praying for healing or help with a particular problem, but we need to make sure that it is in accordance with the task that God gave us to do.

     He suggested that our prayers become "so that" prayers.  Here is what a "so that" prayer would look like.  Your prayer would look something like this: "Lord please bring healing to my body, so that I can complete the work you gave me to do."  Or perhaps you would pray, "Lord please help me with this struggle (insert your struggle here) so that I can complete the work you gave me to do."   In my case I would pray "Lord please sell my house, so that I can complete the work you gave me to do."

     With a so that prayer, the focus has changed from our own selfish desires, to lining up our desires with the Lord's desire for us.  It changes our perspective and our focus is back where it needs to be in the first place.  If we are honest, we often forget what God has for us to do when we are going through a difficult time or struggle in our own lives.   We should pray so that God will be glorified when He answers our prayers.

     I wanted to share these thoughts with you, so that you could think differently about your own prayers.  It is not so that I can dazzle you with my brilliance, but so that God may recieve the honor.  It truly is my heart's desire that someone will be ministered to through these words, but also through this blog.  I hardly ever have anything profound to say, but if just one person is encouraged I believe that I have accomplished one thing that God has asked me to do and that is to be an encourager.  I pray that you have been encouraged so that you can complete the work God has for you to do.