{"id":539,"date":"2011-06-26T09:00:36","date_gmt":"2011-06-26T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.barbdahlgren.com\/?p=539"},"modified":"2011-06-03T21:54:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-04T02:54:14","slug":"effective-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/?p=539","title":{"rendered":"Effective Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/a>Many times we go to people asking advice but we really do not want their input.\u00a0 What we really desire is their stamp of approval on what we want to do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we can approach our spiritual life the same way.\u00a0 Many prayers are not seeking God\u2019s guidance in our lives, but an attempt to talk God into giving us what we want.\u00a0 Give me, give me, give me prayers miss the mark.\u00a0 No wonder the disciples had to ask Christ, \u201cLord, teach us to pray.\u201d\u00a0 (Luke 11:1)<\/p>\n

Prayer can have many components:\u00a0 praise (1 Chronicles 29:10-13), adoration (Ephesians 3:14-21), thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:20), supplication (Matthew 7:7, Philippians 4:6), confession (Proverbs 28:13, 1 John 1:9), and so on.\u00a0 However, most of us just focus on supplication and trying to get what we want for ourselves and for others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>However, effective prayer\u2019s purpose is not to get what we want; it\u2019s a way of changing ourselves so we want the right things.\u00a0 Prayer is not a means to change our circumstances as much as it is a way to change ourselves.\u00a0 That\u2019s heavy stuff.\u00a0 Prayer coupled with bible study helps us form a deeper relationship with God and know the mind of God.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it is true that God hears all prayers, if the only time we pray is when we are at the end of our rope, expecting God to deliver us from our circumstances is unreasonable.\u00a0\u00a0 Prayer doesn\u2019t change circumstances as much as it changes us so we can cope with our circumstances. \u00a0\u00a0We don\u2019t pray, \u201cLet my will be done;\u201d we pray, \u201cLet thy will be done.\u201d (Matthew 6:10)\u00a0<\/p>\n

If we are praying often we can even grow to mean it when we say, \u201cLet thy will be done.\u201d\u00a0 Our goal should be to align our will with God\u2019s.\u00a0 Christ realized this when he prayed for \u201cthis cup to pass from me\u201d regarding his crucifixion, yet he told God he wanted God\u2019s will to be done.\u00a0 (Matthew 26:39) \u00a0<\/p>\n

We were created to be in a relationship with God.\u00a0 Prayer is part of that process.\u00a0 A deep, meaningful relationship cannot form unless you have a means of constant contact.\u00a0 Prayer is our avenue of developing that relationship.\u00a0 It provides continual dialog with God.<\/p>\n

Perhaps our prayers would get more results if we didn\u2019t approach them with the attitude of \u201cI wonder what God can do for me today?\u201d\u00a0 Maybe asking God what we can do to better serve him each day would make all our prayers more effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many times we go to people asking advice but we really do not want their input.\u00a0 What we really desire is their stamp of approval on what we want to do.\u00a0 Unfortunately, we can approach our spiritual life the same … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/barbdahlgren.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}