Source: Huff Post

This past Easter I attended the President’s Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House along with a couple hundred religious leaders from across the country. Before breakfast, a 76-year-old African-American preacher who served alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement offered a prayer. I was expecting a perfunctory pre-meal prayer, but it was anything but. He prayed with such a familiarity with the Heavenly Father that I felt like I barely knew God. It was like his words were deep-fried in the faithfulness of God. And he prayed with such authority that my prayers felt like weak sauce by comparison. After he said amen, I turned to the person next to me and said, “I feel like I’ve never prayed before.”

Have you ever been around someone who prayed with such familiarity and authority that you’d be shocked if God didn’t answer their prayer? I wonder if that is how the disciples felt around Jesus. Maybe that’s why they said: “Lord, teach us to pray.” His prayers were so qualitatively different that the disciples felt like they’d never really prayed before. So Jesus taught them a new way to pray. We call it “The Lord’s Prayer.”

I’m afraid we give up too easily, too quickly. One thing that has helped me stay consistent and persistent in prayer is a prayer journal. It’s the way I document my requests and His answers. It also insures that I give God the glory when He delivers.

Now let me offer one warning. God is not a genie in a bottle and our wish is not His command. His command better be our wish. Prayer isn’t about getting what we want from God. The ultimate objective of prayer is to discern and do the will of God. But if you pray in the will of God, for the glory of God, all bets are off.

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