Philippians 4:6-7 (NKJV)
"6Â Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7Â and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Prayer is a staple practice for the Christian. We all use it to an extent. Also, don't be intimidated by the word supplication. It simply means to ask humbly and earnestly of. Supplication is something we do in prayer. We bring requests and desires before God in prayer. It's something most people do. How often, however, do we do this? How are we praying?
That first verse says be anxious for nothing! How is that possible? God lays out the format for the how to. Pray, thank God, make request known to Him, and peace comes. Simple formula. Yet, we like to make this formula more complicated. We throw in all these complications known as life. We doubt. We question. We complain. We blame God for a lack of progress. Our focus in prayer is thrown off. Rather than telling God about how bad life looks, we should be thanking God for all the blessings on the way.
If you read my post from two weeks ago, you would remember that I mentioned that II Chronicles 16:9 mentions that God looks to show himself strong on those who love Him. God wants to bless you. Matthew 7:8 says ask and you receive. Sometimes, I feel that we forget to ask God. We know God can provide. We know about the power of prayer. Yet, there seems to be a lapse of focus from us. God becomes background noise. We hear it but it's become almost numbing to us. This is what can happen when our connection to God goes stale.
John 15:4 says "Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." Our connection to the vine (Christ) is kept strong by spending time (lots in prayer) with Him. I want to you picture in your mind a tree. It stands resolute in a lush forest. Its roots entrenched in the soil. Branches stretch far and wide providing shady cover. Leaves glow in the sunlight. The hickory brown trunk stands firm. Now imagine if this grand tree were to be uprooted. Its fall would be thunderous. This fall, however, would not occur immediately.
After doing some research, root damage for a tree can take months or years to fully manifest. Trees can even recover if the root damage isn't too severe. If the damage is over 1/4 of the roots, however, it won't recover. The imagery and random facts I promise prove a point I'm trying to make. When we aren't keeping up our prayer life, we take root damage to our relationship with God. Our connection to Him isn't as strong. It can happen to anyone. Remember the tree image? It was in a lush forest. Surrounded. Our connection to God isn't simply maintained because we go to church or are surrounded by strong Christians. Our connection to God has to be our personal relationship, not our religious affiliation. It has to become real to us. That happens by spending time with Him. That comes by prayer, reading the Word, and worship. When that becomes a constant, keeping our focus on Him isn't so challenging. Peace settles in.
If you've made it this far reading my post bravo! I'm happy you heard me out. My hope is that you act on this. Make an effort to improve your prayer life. Do it more often. Do it focused on God's provision. God whacked me upside on the head recently with this. He showed me that my prayer life stunk. It has helped me greatly turning back to God. I encourage you to do the same. There's a quote up in my church that says: "Little prayer, little power. Lot of prayer, lot of power."
For further reading: John 15:1-17