Tag: pray

Tools for a Life of Prayer: 5 Reasons to Cultivate a Prayer Life

On By CaitlynIn Prayer and Worship2 Comments


Welcome to my new series on Tools for a Life of Prayer! In this series, I hope to provide lots of practical tips and strategies to make your prayer life richer, as well as a few core theological perspectives about prayer.

We have to start with the most foundational question: WHY? What is the point of cultivating a rich, deep prayer life?

1. It’s supposed to be normal Christianity.

I’m not sure how we ended up with this version of Christianity where we talk to God less than we talk to Siri, but it’s not okay. The biblical picture of relationship with God includes LOTS of talking to Him… because that’s what relationship is. When we accepted Christ, we said yes to a lifestyle of relationship that starts now– not just someday in heaven.

“And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.”
(Luke 18:1)

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
(Acts 2:42)

“praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication…”
(Ephesians 6:18)

“Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.”
(Colossians 2:2)

2. It’s the gateway to friendship with God.

Real friendship with God is a real thing that’s possible. Moses and Abraham were both called friends of God (Exodus 33:11, Isaiah 41:8), and through Jesus, we all have the opportunity to enter into this reality.

Just as there’s a vast difference between my Facebook “friends” and my actual BFF, there’s a spectrum of friendship with God that’s available. We’re all in the family if we’re saved, but God longs to share the deep things of His heart with those willing to linger with Him. He wants to be as close to us as we will let Him be. The deeper we go in prayer, the deeper our friendship with God will be.

“Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.”
(Exodus 33:11)

“This is my beloved and this is my friend…”
(Song of Solomon 5:16)

“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.”
(John 3:29)

“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”
(John 15:15)

3. It’s life for my soul.

We weren’t created to be always on the go, always busy, always flooding our neurons with stimulation and busyness and entertainment. We were created for intimacy with God. We were created to gaze into His eyes in the secret place and feel His heart bursting with love for us. When we slow down and fix our gaze on Him, we find peace and refreshing. Seeking Him is a lifelong journey of fascination–He really is better than anything else I could look to for satisfaction.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”
(Psalm 23:2)

“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.”
(Psalm 27:4)

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”
(Psalm 90:14)

4. It’s the fuel and foundation of ministry.

We can’t do the second commandment (love people) without the first commandment (love God), and we’re supposed to keep them in their proper order. (Matthew 22:37-40) The presence of God found in prayer is the fuel for everything else we do in serving God and loving people. We pour out in serving others from the overflow of what we experience with God secretly. In the early days of the church, the apostles considered their time in prayer so essential that they reorganised their ministry to delegate certain responsibilities to others so that they could spend more time in prayer! (Acts 6:2-4)

Jesus modeled this in His time on earth. He would frequently withdraw from public ministry to have time alone with God.

“But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.”
(Luke 5:15-16)

5. It’s the deep desire of Jesus’ heart.

This is the one that always gets me. Even when I feel like I’m okay skipping my prayer time for the day, Jesus longs for that connection time. I know He loves the sound of my voice, and He longs to share His heart with me in return. He died for real intimacy with me. How dare I cheat Him out of what He so deeply desires and deserves!

Sometimes we forget that Jesus is emotional–He misses us when we ignore Him. As if every way that prayer benefits me wasn’t enough, I want to give Jesus what HE wants, that precious gift that only I can bring: my time, my voice, my heart.

“O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.”
(Song of Solomon 2:14)

“Thus says the LORD, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness…”
(Jeremiah 2:2)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
(Matthew 23:37)

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am…”
(John 17:24)

This is only the tip of the iceberg of reasons to pray! I’m excited to dive into this series and share some of the things I’ve learned that have taken me deeper into connecting with God–and hopefully learn a lot from YOU along the way!

What are the reasons you want to pursue a life of prayer? Tell me in the comments!

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What I’m Praying: Monthly Financial Breakthrough!

On By CaitlynIn What I'm Praying

Continuing my What I’m Praying series, I’d like to share with you an urgent need that The Prayer Room is devoting the month of February to contend for. In 2017, our monthly finances took a $2000/month hit compared to 2016. We’ve been limping along for a while, but moving forward we can’t really limp much more without a serious financial breakthrough. We’re asking God to stir the hearts of His people (or the hearts of unbelievers; we’re not picky!) to commit to partner with us financially on a monthly basis. For some people, that might mean bigger numbers, but for others, that might mean even $5 or $10 each month.

It’s an amazing principle in the Kingdom of God that your heart follows your wallet. (“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21) In the weeks before I graduated from IHOPU, I remember sitting around a kitchen floor with some fellow graduating seniors talking about the future and being emotional, and I’ll never forget what my friend Nathan said: “If you want to fall in love with each other for a lifetime, start partnering with each other financially.”

It’s so true. I have given special financial gifts to many of my classmates, and I partner monthly with a good friend from IHOPU who is now serving at another house of prayer a few hours away. My heart is so much more connected to them all now because I have a tangible investment in what God is doing through them. I know for a fact that the ones God brings to partner with us will end up more connected to the vision of night and day prayer and more invested in the story of what God is doing.

This blog post serves a dual purpose: first, to invite you to pray with us that God would send monthly financial partners, and second, to invite you to become the answer to your own prayer by going to The Prayer Room’s DONATE page and committing to give monthly at whatever dollar amount you like.

We’re spending the entire month of February focussing on this need as a community. We’re strategising and reaching out in as many ways as we can think of, but most importantly, we’re mobilising the community to pray.

In the book of Haggai, God gave a promise to Zerubbabel the governor of Judah and Joshua the high priest in the days of the rebuilding of the temple after the exile. This is His heart to build and supply for His house of prayer:

“And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts.The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.”
(Haggai 2:7-9)

We invite you to draw upon that promise with us in prayer. Below you can watch a five-minute clip of a 5am prayer meeting praying for financial breakthrough just a few days ago. (If the embedded video doesn’t work for any reason, visit it on our Facebook page.)

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What I’m Praying: Refreshing

On By CaitlynIn What I'm Praying2 Comments

Continuing my What I’m Praying series…

The past few weeks, TPR has been focussed on praying for a time of deep refreshing to come to our community. This has been our rapid fire topic at the end of every set.

To be honest, it’s been an exhausting year. Many people feel a bit dry and dull and just soul-weary. We need a good strong “time of refreshing” (Acts 3:20) from the Lord to revive our hearts. Living dry is no fun.

It’s true that most of life is lived in the mundane. Most of the time, we’re neither on the mountaintop nor in the depths of despair; rather, we’re sort of on the plateau of daily walking out life with God, trying to stay obedient and faithful no matter how we’re feeling.

But we don’t want to just be okay with not encountering God.

We’re asking God for a season of refreshing, that as individuals and as a community we would receive an increased touch of the Holy Spirit.

This past week, I believe we’ve started to see glimpses of that. On Saturday night, Brad was called last minute to attend a meeting, so instead of him continuing our teaching series, our weekly Encounter service became a prayer meeting with extended worship for exactly this topic of refreshing. We asked God to move in signs and wonders and to refresh us with an increased manifestation of His presence. The corporate nature of that prayer meeting, with all of us in the room joined with fervor and unity, and the worship team’s excellent prophetic leadership, definitely brought refreshing to our hearts. With the leanness of our 18/7 schedule right now, we’re not able to have those experiences together very often.

Also, on Sunday night a prayer group from a local Messianic congregation visited the prayer room. Almost 30 ladies joined us for an hour or so, and God really moved among them. Our worship leader felt a strong prophetic nudge to spontaneously lead a ministry time from the prayer mic (don’t worry, the usher took his seat so the stage wasn’t empty) and give a call for anyone who felt called to missions. The room was deeply touched and many responded. That kind of move of the Spirit is the kind of thing we’re praying to see more of.

Please join us in praying that God would refresh us with a fresh wave of His Spirit!
God, thank You for Your presence here – please increase our experience of Your presence. Open the heavens and send another wave of Your Spirit to refresh, awaken, and revive us. We’re crying out for fresh fire. Meet us in our hunger as You’ve promised.

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What I’m Reading: Nazirite DNA

On By CaitlynIn What I'm Reading1 Comment

(Full disclosure: I love to recommend resources to help you in your journey, and when I do I use Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase something through my links, I may receive a small commission. But if there’s a resource you want, I encourage you to get it wherever works best for you!)

About seven or eight years ago when I was a student at APU, I came across a little booklet someone had left to share in the student prayer chapel. It was Nazirite DNA by Lou Engle, and I read it over and over and copied my favourite quotes into my journal. That little 37-page book stirred a fire in me to be wholly abandoned to God.
A few months ago, I purchased a copy to add to The Prayer Room‘s library, because this message of consecration is sooooo crucial to the prayer movement and the forerunner ministry. I’ve been reading and loving it all over again.

In Numbers 6:1-21, immediately preceding the Aaronic blessing, the invitation was given for anyone in the community to consecrate themselves to the Lord as a Nazirite.

In the Old Testament, only men from the tribe of Levi could be priests. The whole nation was called to be a kingdom of priests, but only the Levites were given the special privilege of living out lives completely absorbed in the vocation of jealously guarding the purity and administration of the worship of God. However, in the Nazirite vow, God opened the door to anyone, male or female, from any tribe, who longed to be as radical in devotion and near to God as the priests were. The only qualification was to have a heart that intensely desired it…Nazirites spontaneously, joyfully, and willingly apropriated the priestly separation and and condition of life because of an inward working of the Spirit’s grace.
–Nazirite DNA, page 10

Nazirites took three key vows:

  1. Abstain from wine and all grape-derived foods
  2. Abstain from cutting their hair
  3. Abstain from going near a dead body, even that of a family member

Lou Engle interprets these three vows in a modern context as being about 1) choosing to fast from certain permissible pleasures in pursuit of God as the greatest pleasure, 2) be willing to be radically and noticeably set apart from the culture, and 3) avoiding the defilement of anything that would lead to spiritual death.
God always responds to those who earnestly seek Him. Abandoned devotion to Him that chooses JESUS over everything else pulls on the strings of His heart and draws His presence close in a unique way. He moves dramatically in response to the cries of His people, and He’s shown us that a fasted lifestyle is a way to strengthen those cries.

In my own life, I know I so easily get sucked into the vortex of “lesser pleasures”–I love my Netflix and Nutella a little too much most days, and those things tend to dampen my hunger for God by making me believe I have all I need in the pleasures of this world. When I set myself apart from these things and focus all of my energy on seeking God, my hunger for Jesus comes roaring back to the surface.

It’s like I want to eat healthy but fill up on ice cream and potato chips every day. By the end of the day, I don’t really have an appetite for grilled chicken and veggies, even though I know they’re so much more satisfying. I have to actually make radical changes in my diet to enjoy my healthy food to the fullest and reap the benefit of it.

God changes history through people with a Nazirite-like consecration. He is looking for those who would be willing to be wholly set apart for Him–people to whom He can entrust the burdens of His heart and who will be in it for the long haul with Him until His dreams are fulfilled.

God, raise up a generation hungry for You above all else, who will forsake lesser pleasures in order to throw themselves into pursuit of You and partnership with Your dreams.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book for anyone desiring more of God, or desiring to desire more of God. If you’re local to The Prayer Room, you can stop by and borrow our copy to read in the prayer room, or you can get it on Amazon.

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