So why should there be an exhortation to be strong in the practice of prayer and to keep awake? Because prayer may be tiring, and there are many distractions and impediments to prayer. A first impediment is self-confidence, and it invades everyone. I am used to doing these things; I have done them for years. I have taught Sunday school or preached for years, so I just do not feel the need to earnestly lay things before the Lord. Then another great impediment is a failure to understand the difficulty of spiritual work. We have to remind ourselves constantly. Has an opportunity come to speak to someone? We will do it but perhaps prayerlessly, because we have lost touch with the impossibility of persuading anyone of spiritual things. The heart is so hard, people are so obstinate, that nothing can be accomplished without the work of the Spirit in the heart. Then there are endless distractions, some of our own making, and some supplied by Satan. When it is time to pray, there are always distractions we have to be deeply suspicious of and resistant to. Then there may be a degree of backsliding in this sense – that we have lost the desire for blessing. We do not care if that person is saved or not. We are used to that person’s opposition or blasphemy. It no longer concerns us that that person is hell bound and facing every kind of misery spiritually in life without Christ. That is why lots of people who could, do not attend prayer meetings. Then it may be there is a lack of faith in prayer. If I skip my devotions this evening or this morning, will it make a great difference? Will there be a loss of blessing? Well, I have lost faith in the necessity and the power of prayer. Then there may be a loss of sense of debt to God, that I owe my life and my prayers to him; I have an obligation to intercede for others.
Do pray for real things. Satan traps us with general things, sometimes for weeks, general strength, forgiveness. Pray for help in employment not only in the home. Pray for strength, for enthusiasm to make a real effect. Pray for small things and big things, inward and outward deeds, pray for your own things and for the things of others.
For prayer we need habits and we need discipline and times that we stick to. We also need reflection. We need to reflect upon the plight of the lost so that we feel for them. We need to reflect on our debt to the Lord. We need to reflect on our impotence without his help and without his power.
Take careful note of the answers of God to your prayers. How often this is omitted. Thanksgiving is a debt. For every provision, every testimony, for every call to prayer, thank God. What is a call to prayer? Some hardship you have encountered, some grief you have sustained, some difficulty or trial you have run into, some insult you have endured; they drive us to prayer and we prove him.
Thank him for your husband, thank him for your wife, thank him for family, thank him for colleagues, thank him for the church, thank him for the protection of the church, thank him for the Gospel, thank him for individuals who have been influenced by your prayers for the opportunity to make intercession.
What are the departments of prayer? To remember these is an enormous antidote to tiredness and loss of concentration.
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First, we are to call upon God, not just kick in the door and rush in to his presence. Name his name reflect on who he is. Remember the pathway into the presence of God, Jesus Christ who suffered and died.
Secondly, adoration. Praise him and extol him, marvel at him. Thank him for his attributes. Reflect on them and feel them. Praise and adore the living God. Do not come into his presence and immediately say, Thank you Lord for my salvation. That is all about me. There is a place for that but not right at the beginning. Call upon him and extol him and wonder at him and get that perspective.
Thirdly, give thanks. Give thanks for redemption before thanking him for your salvation. Give thanks for the plan of salvation, for the wonders of redemption, for his goodness and for his love. Thank him for his word. Without his revelation, we would be nowhere and we would know nothing.
Fourthly, thank him for your salvation, for how he brought you to himself and opened your mind. Thank him that you can depend upon him and upon Christ. And then thank him for his dealings with you even recently for his work in your heart, for every moment of shame, for every pang of conscience, for every good intention. At the same time, affirm some great truth of God. Perhaps you want to affirm your eternal security and the fact that you are safe in his hands by his grace alone; perhaps you want to affirm everlasting life, but affirm the great truths of God.
Fifthly, repentance for sin, personal repentance.
Sixthly, petitions and requests of God.
Seventhly, intercession. You will surely have prayer lists, the people you intercede for.
Eighthly, dedication. All over again, every day, give him your life, your strength, your time, your power, even your stewardship.
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