UNDERSTANDING IS KEY TO MAXIMIZING PRAYER

PRAYER IS PRACTICED by untold millions of people but relatively few people have true understanding of prayer.  Without proper understanding abuse is inevitable. Everyone prays but not everyone profits so much from its practice; even though the practice of prayer is known to be helpful to every human being.

Understanding is key. It is the key to maximizing prayer. Understanding prayer is essential to profiting from its practice. Those who understand what they are doing profit the most from it.  When understanding is in the heart the mouth speaks appropriately as it ought to. When we understand we pray appropriately. 

Most of the time our prayer is prompted by a deep seated fear that something tragic will happen if we fail to pray. Some people have the fear of going to sleep at night unless they prayed. This fear is revealed in the traditional children’s prayer, “If I should DIE before I awake, I pray the Lord my soul to take". Such prayer indicates a lingering fear of death and implies the necessity of asking God each day to “save the soul”. While not discrediting the intentions of people who practice prayer in such fashion, we can point at least two problems with such prayers: the lack of understanding of the true nature of God prayer itself. 

To pray because of a “foolish fear of God” is to pray from a false premise. While reverence for God is most necessary for healthy and successful living, a coward fear will remove virtue from any act of worship.  Fear is the greatest single reason for most people engaged in religious activity.

Most people are prompted to pray because of their desire for “gain”— gain of material wealth, new homes, jobs, even vacations. This use of prayer reveals a misconception of prayer and a lack of understanding of God’s present purpose. We are prompted by such verses as, “ask and it shall be given you”, we realize one disappointment after another until we eventually grow to disbelieve in prayer altogether.

To understand prayer and its relationship to man and to our Sovereign God indicates that it was never intended scripturally speaking, to be used as it is used today. We take prayer and spiritual things as a matter of course, resorting to them only in emergencies or need.  When we are pressed by necessities we seek for help and ask for it from the only Being competent to give it.

There are too many superstitions around prayer, so much that people feel that prayer is a subject that cannot be comprehended. It is about time we gave the matter of prayer more definite consideration than we have in the past.  Understanding is freedom, it removes prayer from the mysterious and superstitious realm we have put it.

The importance of understanding is profoundly set forth in the scripture “parable of the sower”.

Matthew 13:19, “When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. But… to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Anyone may hear the “word of the kingdom, but if he DOES NOT UNDERSTAND it, what he heard will not profit him. But those WITH UNDERSTANDING are empowered, they get more results.

Understanding answers, the question, “What does this mean to me?”

The Kingdom of God is a mystery to those who lack understanding of its nature, its power and it operation.

Until you have yourself seriously considered, and are fully acquainted with the meaning of and convinced of the truth about prayer”, you can not engage in prayer profitably.

In arriving at good understanding of the of the vital facts about prayer, its origin, its fundamental nature and purpose we empowered to make the most use of it. We shall discover that “Prayer is the greatest and most unused resource that men have.”

Psalm 14:19, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.” 

Our prayers are acceptable when we utter them from understanding— true understanding of God and ourselves. We acquire this true understanding of God and ourselves from the Incarnate Word (Jesus Christ) in the written word of God.

Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path”. 

Jesus said, “ “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in  darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

 Our words and thoughts in prayer are acceptable, when they are according to the word of God. We utter acceptable prayer when it proceeds from the light of God’s word, which is Truth. When we pray according to Truth, it is then acceptable.

 John. 1:17, “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

Prayer, whether vocal or mental, and of praise, are to be uttered from a true understanding of God.

Psalms 49:3, “My mouth shall speak of wisdom; and the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding.”

The level of our enlightenment or understanding of God affects the quality of our prayer and its results. Compare the dying prayer of Samson, and dying prayer of Stephen, an Apostle of Jesus Christ.

Samson as he wound his arms around the sustaining pillars of the Philistine dining hall and cried:

“O Lord Jehovah, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes”. (Judges 16:28)

And Stephen, as he was being stoned to death prayed:

“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” (Acts 7:60).

Both are prayers, but they come from two ages between which the REVELATION OF GOD and the meaning of prayer had infinitely widened.

Both in the Scripture and out of it, the quality of prayer is suited to the breadth or narrowness of view, the generosity or bitterness of spirit, which the generation or the individual possesses.

In Jesus we see the true nature of God — He called God, a Father, He has always been a father — father of all graciousness, all goodness, all love; a father who is on the lookout for the well-being of His children.

We are to let a new understanding of God and true reality revealed in Jesus Christ guide the frame of our prayers if we are to get positive results from our praying.