The Limits of Spontaneous Prayer

Draw near to the throne of grace. HEBREWS 4:16Spontaneous prayer is a marvellous gift, but when things are really important, we rarely trust spontaneity.If you work in sales, you try to understand your client’s needs in order to recommend a product that will be helpful to them. You research their website, you learn about their business, and you prepare a presentation that is adapted to the particular customer. Why? Because the meeting matters. So why would you not do the same with prayer?Suppose you had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of a direct audience with Almighty God. You could ask Him anything you want to and tell Him what matters to you. Now suppose your appointment with God was this coming Thursday for 15 minutes.You would prepare. You would say to yourself, “this is the most important conversation of my entire life! I have 15 minutes with God. What am I going to say? What am I going to ask? How am I going to make the best use of this immense privilege?”.There would be some things you would want to ask for yourself. What do you really need from God? If you are married, you would want to ask something for your spouse, and for your children, for other friends and loved ones. What do they need? What is really going to make a difference for them? You don’t want to waste your golden opportunity.When you meet with God, you will want to thank Him. You will want to confess and make some things right with Him. You will want to deepen and strengthen your relationship with Him. You don’t want to wing it on these things, so you prepare. Do you view prayer as the most important conversation of your life? How do you prepare?Written by Colin SmithRead by Sue McLeish www.openthebible.org.uk