"Whoever has ears, let them hear,” (Matthew 13:9 NIV).
The other night, I was sitting in bed contemplating everything that had happened throughout the day. I was broken, beat down, and overwhelmed with cataclysmic chaos in my mind as I tried to sift through everything that came my way.
As I sat there, talking to the Lord, looking up scriptures to find the answers to some of my dilemmas; I pulled out one of my long lost pieces of spiritual arsenal, began to pray some specifically recommended prayers, and went to bed anticipating how God was going to answer my requests.
The next day I started out my morning routine with those specific prayers and began to pray another one in regards to protection. Now you would have thought that praying God’s word would bring about the results that we desire, but unfortunately, things got worse and began to spiral out of control through the following days.
Why would God answer that prayer that way? It's easy to automatically assume when things go bad it HAS to be the enemy but doesn’t God protect us from him? When things came to a screeching halt and I was confronted with the truth, I could hear the Lord speak to my heart, "This is how I'm answering your prayer, so you can see and recognize what you need protection from."
Only the Lord can take something so topsy-turvy and make sense of it all and I'm sure most of you are wondering, "What does this have to do with LEARNING how to pray? It's because prayer is mostly about listening . . .
I know there are TONS of people and resources that teach how to pray in ALL kinds of ways. Some use acrostics, others use a checklist, many use the "official" Lord's prayer as a formula on how to come before him in a specific way. Those are all great ways to get started, but if you want to take your prayer life to the next level, start asking the Lord to give you the eyes to see what you NEED to see, listen attentively to what He will have to say, and be prepared . . . anything and everything could come your way.