The Power of Prayer

I have a confession. Prayer is my weakness. I have not disciplined myself in consistent prayer in my walk with God. Of course I pray with the man leading at church, I pray along in chapel settings at school, I pray with my family before meals, I pray for safety before I travel…you get the idea. But my own personal prayer life? Mediocre at best. Everyone talks about how powerful prayer is. My head knows it, but my heart has a hard time knowing it at times.

I first experienced the power of prayer my freshman year of college when my Granddaddy died. I had so many people I know and love tell me that they were praying for my family and me. That brought a sense of peace I had never experienced before. I felt the power of prayer other times throughout college when we would have campus wide prayer times for specific people going through sickness, death, other various trials.

If I’m being completely honest, I haven’t experienced the same power of prayer from college until this week at work. We had a faculty prayer for a coworker whose daughter is sick. It was evident that cutting meetings short and praying as a family was more important than checking off our to-do list. So we gathered in the lobby, prayed for our coworker, her husband, their daughter and I felt the love and power in the room that can only be felt by a big group of praying people. We found out the next day that the daughter had made great improvements that evening. Talk about getting chills! Could it be a coincidence? Maybe. But I firmly believe that the Great Physician gave her body the strength it needed to improve at that time.

I almost hate confessing that I struggle in the area of prayer. It’s embarrassing at times when I think about how inconsistent I am in talking to my Father, Creator, and Giver of Life. But I write this because I know (or at least I hope) that I am not the only one that struggles with the discipline of prayer. I have tried prayer journaling and get out of the habit. I have tried setting reminders on my phone to pray right before bed – but that usually results in falling asleep before I say “amen.” So to challenge myself and anyone else that needs prayer encouragement, I am going to do a 15-day prayer challenge.

In this challenge, each day has a specific person, event, subject to pray about. If you are like me it is sometimes hard to stay focused on one thought. My hope is that we can all say at least one prayer a day where we can devote our thoughts and hearts to one idea. This can allow deeper prayer and more meaningful time with God. Print this out, mark each day off as you complete your prayer, and begin the next day. Do it over and over again if this is helpful for you. Create your own prayer challenge so you know exactly what to pray for.

How comforting is it to know that God hears us in prayer? Dwell on that thought and go before Him humbly and with an open heart. My sisters, I will be praying that this prayer time is rewarding for you.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.”
~ Jeremiah 29:11