“Lord, in the morning you will hear me; in the morning I will present my case to you and then wait expectantly for an answer.” Psalm 5:3
Over the past couple of days, I have shared about some of the difficulties I have faced in developing an effective prayer life. I realize now that part of my problem was setting aside the role of the Holy Spirit in my prayers. I tried to take over the process on my own. It is really the work of the Holy Spirit to make my prayers effective, and it is my job to stay out of the way and let Him direct my prayers.
As Paul tells us, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.” (Romans 8:26-27) I think that too often we become hinderances to our own prayers with our attitudes and approaches. What I have tried to do in recent years is give the Holy Spirit more freedom to direct my prayer life. John tells us in John 14:26 “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your memory all that I said to you.” If the Holy Spirit, who is as real as God the Father and Jesus the Son, dwells within us, we should probably allow Him to be teacher He is supposed to be. Our prayer life is not our own, but is by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. Although there is only one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, our access to Jesus is because of the indwelling Holy Spirit. We can never forget that…yet, we do.
In Galatians Paul explains, “the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.” (Galatians 6:8) Paul is not only speaking for himself when he tells us in Romans 7:16 “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.” So if there is no ability to do good, what hope do we have? Paul reminds us of our hope in the next chapter when he says, “Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you.” (Romans 8:8-9) It is apparent that the Holy Spirit must play the primary role in our prayers if our prayers are going to be in alignment with God.
With all of this in mind, I will tell you how I have tried to revamp my morning and afternoon prayer time. I will start with the morning because it comes first almost every day. In the past I would read the Bible, do some other reading, pray my prayer list, and then do a little writing. Often, I would have to rush so much to get through everything that I was not giving my prayer time the solemnity it deserved. On the other hand, I had so many prayers, that if I did not rush, 
I would not get through them all and those on the end of my list were left out in cold. The problem was me. I was trying to do everything on my own by using a checklist of tasks. I was sacrificing a true prayer to “get things done.” I am hopeful that God looked beyond my overly-structured approach to prayer and extended undeserved grace by answering some of my prayers. I know there were answers, I am just not sure how much I had to do with it.
So I knew I had do something different. Getting up early had never been a problem for me, it was using the time wisely that I had to address. I have always had a special quiet place to pray, so that was not an issue either. So if I had the time and had the place, why wasn’t I getting a handle on these morning prayer times? I needed to check my heart. I knew I did not want to be ritualistic, but I did believe I needed to be disciplined. What was the solution?
I have always been a reader and began reading every prayer book I could get my hands on. I read biographies about George Muller, Praying Hyde, Taylor Hudson and other great pray-ers. I also read books such as The Kneeling Christian, The Hour That Changes the World, the Common Book of Prayer and studied authors like Andrew Murray and Leonard Ravenhill. I even subscribed to prayer podcasts. I got good ideas from all of them, but there was still something missing. Then something I heard in a sermon that set me on another course. I realized that I was trying to do all the work on my own. I had the One within me that moved upon the waters at 
creation, and I was trying to this on my own. The sermon I listened to was on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit tends to be the neglected person of the trinity. There are over 600 prayers in the Bible and over 400 known answers to prayer. The Holy Spirit played an instrumental part of those prayers, yet for every mention of God the Father and Christ the Son in the church today, the Holy Spirit falls into a sad third place. Consequently, I realized the the Holy Spirit was playing a sad third place in my life, as well.
I started to think that ignoring the power of the Holy Spirit in my life might have something to do with my inconsistent prayer life. I started to make a connection between the reoccurring problems in my own and other’s prayer lives and my own and maybe others disconnect from the Holy Spirit. I talked to many people about prayer and one of the things seems to always come up was the “wandering mind” problem. Keeping focused during prayer seemed to be somewhat universal. I began praying aloud many years ago to combat those roving thoughts, but that only got me part way there. I found out, after hearing the sermon, that it is better to allow the Holy Spirit to direct my wandering mind.
In other words, let my mind wander under the direction of the Spirit’s leading. It is a wonderful thing. It takes my prayers out of my head and puts in the hands of the Holy Spirit- where they need to be. What is amazing is my mind no longer wanders to unrelated things, but to other prayer needs. Instead of wasted thoughts, they are useful thoughts.
The way I involve the Holy Spirit is by Praying the Bible. This method has been around for a long time, but I don’t think I understood it. Although, I still keep a list, but I don’t use that list in the morning except for our kids and grandkids and immediate needs. Instead I pick a section of scripture (the Psalms are perfect for this) and pray that God will give me wisdom as I read it all the way through. I ask God to bring things to my mind that I need to be brought to my mind. I will then read the scripture again one phrase at a time, and I allow each phrase to take me somewhere. Often that phrase might lead to a multitude of people or situations, and I just let it go there. What is amazing is 
that each part of the scripture will lead to new needs. Sometimes the prayers I pray might not match up with the deeper meanings of the scripture, but will still remind me of a certain person or need. My mind does not take off on useless adventures, but actual prayer paths. Instead of being lost in thought, I stay focused.
Let’s see how this works. Psalm 1:1 says “How blessed is the one who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand in the pathway with sinners, or sit in the assembly of scoffers!” I will say one part of the verse aloud and without me thinking about it, prayers will come to my mind. After reading the first sentence of the verse above, I might think of someone who is caught up in something wicked, or maybe someone who is fighting against wickedness in his own life, or leading the the fight against wickedness. The whole planned parenthood disgrace might be brought to mind. I might think of someone who is leading people into something wicked. I might even think of something like the terrorists that are plaguing the world right now. Often that prayer will lead to remembering someone or something else. Sometimes that one line will lead to five or six requests that actually may or may not be on my prayer list. If I have studied the prayers on my list at all, it will not take much prompting from the Holy Spirit to bring them to mind. On the other hand, there may be things I have not even thought of before that might be brought to mind. I used to do the same thing in the past, but it was not requests that were brought to mind, but thoughts of things that directed me away from prayer. This is much different. With this method there is an endless supply of readings to stimulate daily prayer. There are enough Psalms (some longs ones can be divided into several days) for well over a year of prayer, and we can use many other books of the Bible, as well. 
What this does is allows the Holy Spirit to prompt my prayers rather than having to constantly be consulting a list. Sometimes I don’t pray as long when I Pray the Bible (often with the list it was well over an hour), but I believe the prayers are more natural, more sincere, and more in line with God’s will. I read the Word, thank God for it, and then use those same verses to bring needs to mind. If ten of us were reading the same verses, we would probably have ten much different prayers that we would be uttering. The unrestrained direction of the prayer allows the Holy Spirit to be a participant rather than a spectator. It takes the pressure off me and reminds me that God has left a comforter with me. I am comforted by His presence and instruction.
I believe this kind of prayer emphasizes quality over quantity. I used to believe if I did not complete a long list of names, accompanied by several countries, and some worthy causes, my prayer time was a failure. I now believe that Satan enjoyed the guilt I felt because I would sometimes allow these negative feelings to be an obstacle to prayer.
Praying through the Bible is a wonderful tool that puts the Word and Holy Spirit in charge of my prayer time. It is a wonderful thing to feel my mind wander with purpose. I don’t think Satan is pleased with a mind that “wanders purposely” and anything he hates I love. Praying through the Bible takes care of my morning devotion and prayer time, but what about my lists that I keep? Do I just disregard them? Not at all. Tomorrow I will share what I do with the prayers found on my prayer request list. Until tomorrow remember, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
Have a blessed day!