Your Spirituality & Your Prayer Life

Your spirituality is never beyond your prayer life. SP taught about this during the church-wide prayer meeting last Wednesday. I have been reflecting on these words the past few days as I found them to be immensely profound. It is certainly not the first time I am hearing them. In fact, just about 2 months back, Ps SL did say this to during our weekly cluster prayer meeting when he taught on prayer. At that time, I still remember sharing with my guys, "If we know prayer to be so crucial in our life, that our ministry, our spirituality, our success in the Lord, depends on this life of prayer, will we not pray more?"

The logical answer is of course, Yes we will spend most of life seeking God! If a life of prayer is the key to unlocking growth in your cell which you have been struggling with for so long, or to experience the much desired revival that we ask God for, or to experience that breakthrough in your workplace, why do me not pray more? [+]

I realised that for myself, the reason was simple. While I knew it in my head, I did not know it experientially. While I saw it simply as a logical form of cause and effect, I missed out that it was more about delighting in God than in it was about working hard at prayer so that i could get what i want. This season of prayer is starting to change that for me. Of course, it helps that we are keeping each other accountable in this one hour with God. The discipline helps cultivate what was almost unnatural before. I pray because I know more now, that I need Jesus. I need Him as my advocator before God. I need Him as my place of refuge and my pillar of strength in times of struggle and stress. I want to enjoy the closeness and dwell in the knowledge that God delights in me. I want to, and I need to.

Of course, being the questioning person that I am, I asked, "Does it mean then that the more hours I pray, the closer I will be to God?" So 2 hours is better than 1 hour? 3 hours better than 2 hours? Does it mean then, that God blesses us conditionally on how much we pray? Certainly a very tempting way to think, but not a good reflection of who God is. I'm learning that our ability to receive God's blessing is very much dependent on our ability to hear Him and do His bidding. Prayer before the Lord cultivates and builds our capacity to do so. It disciples us to live a life of total reliance upon God rather than to depend on our human abilities which would ultimately lead us to live life without God.

Also, our prayer life is not measured in hours. It is measured in sincerity and truth. Do we pray biblically and passionately to God? Our prayer life is a measure of our intimacy with God ONLY if our prayer life is authentic and biblical. Instead of chasing after how long we pray, let's ask God to tutor us how to pray deeply. Don't be surprised though that when God touches you, the last thing on your mind would be how long.

Joshua Teo