“¹⁸And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

 I need to pray in the Spirit on all occasions. I am to pray all kinds of prayers and requests and I am to keep on praying for other believers. This speaks to me about prayer (obviously). What I get out of this is that there are no bad prayers or wrong prayers. If I pray, and “keep on praying”, even if the pray is not quite right or kind of off, God will hear it. If I don’t give up and “keep on praying” God will even change the prayer if He has to. He will direct my prayer and my mind. But this will not happen if I just throw up a few requests now and then or only when I am in a pickle. I have to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” and “keep on praying.” If not, it becomes a one way conversation in which I tell God what I need and what he ought to do. This will only lead to frustration because what I want and what I think God should do are not always (probably are rarely) what is best for me. God is not going to answer a prayer which results in a bad outcome for me in the long run. I may force God’s hand (It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission), but that’s me. If I pray long enough and often enough about something God will not disappoint me.

This flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom says; God is love and he will do what you ask him to do. The enemy wants me to believe this so that if God does not do what I ask him to, or does not do it on my timetable, then I should just take that as a yes and go on and do what it is I am thinking of doing. I need to resist this kind of thinking. I need to pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests and keep on praying, and leave the results to God. I need to be sensitive to what the Lord is telling me and showing me by His actions or lack of actions. The only way I will get to understand what the Lord is trying to say to me is to pray (on all occasions) and keep on praying.

Doug Hill
ROL Ushers Ministry