Let me share this tip with you that will work every time and get prayers answered ALL the time.
God answers all prayers that are in his will. The trick is finding out God’s will for TODAY.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15 NIV
I have been praying for God to make me a person of prayer. So I have done some work studying quite a few other believers of the past who have succeeded greatly in prayer. One of these people is George Muller. He and I share a similar passion for orphans. (To know more about George Muller, please Check this page on desiring God.) In my opinion, he is the greatest man of faith that has lived since the time of the apostles. He had thousands of answered prayers and miracles happen from his prayers.
He kept a prayer list. Well, I learned from him and started keeping a prayer list. I had modest success with my prayer list. However, my prayer list has grown to over 230 items on the list. Granted, I have many that have been answered. I have some that I changed my mind because I discovered that what I was actually praying for wasn’t good for me. So on the list, I put something like “No longer want answered”.
Well, what I didn’t know was that the best way to be sure God will answer my prayer wasn’t to simply write anything that I wanted on the list but to actually find out what God’s will was before I started praying. I don’t mean here that you simply check to see if it’s Biblical. Many things that are biblical for a Christian aren’t good for me considering the situation that I’m in. This is true for every Christian. For example, many kinds of jobs are good. But only one job will be best for a person at a particular time, that is the job God desires that he should have. The number one job for you on God’s list for that season. If you could know what that is and start praying for him to give it, you can be 100% sure that he will give you exactly what you want. Prayer was never meant for us to get what we want but to move God to do what he already wants to do in a particular situation. I know it begs the question, “then why does God need someone to pray if that’s what he wants to do?”. The answer to that is a mystery. God has basically ordained prayer as the means that he does his will in the world. No prayer, no work from God.
This may sound difficult. It’s almost like having to pray for what to pray for. But this is crucial because we must be able to hear God’s voice before we can appropriately talk to him. Prayer is talking to God. We must be good at hearing God’s voice, to know his will before we can become good at praying. This is true for every baby. I have two little boys. They first learned to hear the sounds we made in our speech and did so for a while before they could speak them out.
My decision for this stage of my life is that I’m going to spend time with God daily and I MUST get good at hearing his voice very clearly. I pray that you will decide to do the same thing to. If so, write me to share your experiences when God teaches you something new.
Remember that it doesn’t matter what stage in life you are in, God will make time for you to spend with him if you show interest. God created us for relationship with him first, not for work, as important as work is.
