how’s your prayer life?

A friend of mine recently visited a congregation in search of an evangelist.

I was as surprised as he was when he shared the first question he was asked right off the bat.

“What version do you use?  Nope.”

“What is your stance about this?  Nope.”

“What is your stance about that?  No.”

The very first question he was asked?

“How’s your prayer life?”

As important as those other questions are (God’s stance is what matters and not our own), “How’s your prayer life?” is a question I will answer on a daily basis.

I know someone else who went to a friend of his, a foreign missionary who was struggling and in need of encouragement.

The first question he asked him – “How’s your prayer life?”

The response was “It’s dead…”

“No wonder!   All this time, I’ve been trying to do this on my strength and power and wisdom and direction rather than His.  That changes right now.”

It was a much different story after that and they went on to be very successful.  And although trials and difficulties still came their way, as they always will, the tons of weight of anxiety they were carrying on their shoulders was no longer there, when they “cast all their anxiety on Christ, knowing He cares for them, 1 Peter 5:7.”

There are points in our lives where each one of us can relate to them.  I know I can.

It’s that important.

So let’s be honest with ourselves.  I encourage you to print these questions off.   Make some of your own.

Look at them throughout the day until we really are “praying without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17)” and prayer is a part of our existence.

To ask ourselves…

How’s my prayer life when things are difficult…uncomfortable…painful…and when I’m scared?

How’s my prayer life when I couldn’t be any happier and it seems everything is going my way?

How’s my prayer life today as I follow Jesus?

How’s my prayer life as a minister of the Gospel of Christ?

How’s my prayer life in my home?  In my marriage? 

When is the last time I prayed with my spouse?

With my children?  For my children?

When is the last time I put my hand on the back of a fellow Christian and prayed for their struggles as they also prayed for mine (James 5:16)?  Instead of criticizing each other to death.

When is the last time I poured my heart out to God and confessed my sins to Him by name (1 John 1:9)?

When is the last time I prayed just to worship the name of the Lord and to thank Him for all He’s done?

Just to tell Him “I love You!”

When is the last time I wept as I prayed?

When is the last time I got down on my knees…no matter what was going on…and prayed without using robotic cliches and prayed as specifically as I possibly could and thanked Him in advance for His will (1 John 5:14)?

When is the last time I prayed for my enemies rather than blasting them behind their back (Matthew 5:43-46)?

How’s my prayer life? 

I’m not saying we should just pray and kick back and not change things in our life’s that need to be changed.

I am saying very few pray as often and as passionately and as intimately as we should.

None of us knows how to pray as we should (Romans 8:26) but we serve a God whose Spirit intercedes for His saints with groanings too deep for our human words.

Who says, “I know what you’re going to pray before you even say it but I still want to hear My child speak to Me.”

Who says to those who pray with the wrong motives, “You do not have because you do not ask (James 4:2).”

Who says “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).”

The first Christians were continually devoted to prayer (Acts 1:14, 2:42).

Jesus would “often slip away to the wilderness and pray (Luke 5:16).”

Prayer is a priceless, irreplaceable blessing that far too often is abused and neglected.

The old hymn expresses it perfectly – “Oh what peace we often forfeit.  Oh what needless pain we bear – all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

But I’d much rather think of the opposite – “Oh what peace I have!  Oh what anxiety and worry I allow Him to bear.  All because this day I take everything to God in prayer.”