As I have been studying for my next two workshops on prayer I have been fascinated by how little time many believers put into their prayers. All too often we just rush into prayer and tell God our problems and what he needs to do about it and then rush out the door of the throne room.

I remember doing that very thing when I was a babe in Christ. I didn’t know any better. As I grew in the Lord I learned about prayer and basing it on the word. How when we pray according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14-15)

Lately though, I am finding many are praying from their heads and not from their hearts. It just seems to be a rote thing with them. There is no preparation time to their prayers and no real fervency to their prayers. Sometimes they pray in fear and not in faith.

If we are going to be successful in our prayer life we need to get in and find out what God says about our situation and then meditate on those scriptures. By doing so we build up our faith and our confidence in God’s word. Then when we pray we can have real fervency or intensity of feeling. It will be coming from our hearts and not out of our heads. Too many people pray from the standpoint of mental assent and not from one of faith.

I encourage you to take the time to look up scriptures and meditate or think on them until faith is formed in your spirit. When you get those scriptures settled in you then you are ready to pray. You will be praying like the righteous man James talks about in his epistle. (James 5:16) Let’s all put more time into our prayer life and into our preparing to pray.