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Prayerology Series
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Many people will reach the end of their lives only to discover they did not accomplish God's purpose for them. Not because they weren't called, capable, or clear—but simply because they weren't consistent. Consistency is the key that unlocks the door to the potential of your capability and your calling.
Inconsistency is expensive. Most people fail not because they lack desire, but because their inconsistency slowly erodes what their effort briefly built. Effort builds it up; inconsistency tears it down. When we're inconsistent, we live in perpetual seasons of restarts—constantly starting over in old places instead of progressing to new ones.
The enemy understands this reality. He targets consistency in every dimension of our lives: relationally, emotionally, physically, and especially spiritually. Spiritual poverty is the worst kind of poverty because our spiritual life affects everything else that matters.
The enemy attacks us with inconsistency in our spiritual disciplines and exercises—particularly prayer. What oxygen is to the physical body, prayer is to the spiritual life. When we fail at prayer, we're not battling demons most of the time; we're battling distractions.
We don't have a prayer problem because we need an exorcism. We have a prayer problem because:
As Solomon says, "Catch now the little foxes that spoil the vine." The devil uses not just dragons; he uses foxes—the small distractions that undermine our consistency.
God doesn't just call us to a what; He calls us to a way. Many people get the what but miss the way. Submission to purpose isn't just submission to what you're called to do—it's also submission to how you're called to do it.
Look at the apostles: Peter and James were called to a more centralized ministry in one place. But Paul's calling required him to engage in missionary journeys, planting Christian presence in different regions. His calling wasn't better than Peter's—it was different. Calling requires freedom from comparison.
When you truly say yes to your calling and obey what God has given you, you become too busy to compare. You don't have time to monitor what everyone else is doing because you're occupied with your own assignment. Comparison is actually an indication that you've been captured by distraction. When you obey more, you compare less.
Paul was a persecutor of Christians named Saul until he had an authentic encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road. His life was radically revolutionized. He changed his name from Saul to Paul and became a preacher of the gospel.
I need to pause here: If God can use and change the life of a man named Saul, then God can use and change you. Who you were is not who you are, and where you are is not where you're going.
Paul's nature of calling required him to establish Christian presence in various places. One of those places was Thessalonica. As he was establishing that presence, persecution became so intense that he had to leave before he could complete the discipleship he desired.
But consider this: If God is the Most High God—if He has the final say—then if He wanted Paul to stay in Thessalonica, no one could have run him out. Sometimes what feels like persecution is actually providence. Perhaps the believers in Thessalonica could only handle what they received at that moment because certain spiritual conversations require certain levels of spiritual maturity.
Paul understood this. In 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, he writes to believers in Corinth: "Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as a people who are still worldly... I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready."
There are conversations God has with you based on your spiritual maturity. When God shifts from giving you encouraging words to giving you corrective words—fix that, correct that, align that—that's actually a compliment. It means you're at a place in your spiritual journey where God can have deeper conversations with you.
Consider Jeremiah 29:11 in its full context. Yes, "I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." But Jeremiah 29:4-7 first says: Build houses, settle down, plant gardens, have children. You're going to be here a while. Then God says, "I don't have to move you to change where you are. I don't have to change what's going on to change what's going on. I can prosper you right where you are."
That's a different kind of conversation—one that comes with spiritual maturity.
At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul gives rapid-fire practical commands on Christian living. Tucked in there are these words:
Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Notice: verse 16 (rejoice always) and verse 18 (give thanks) are relatively similar, but they're anchored by verse 17: pray continually. You can't rejoice always and give thanks in everything if you don't pray continually.
Also notice: in everything, give thanks—not for everything. Not for betrayal, not for that hurt. But in it. In the betrayal, I'm thankful for what He's teaching me. In the hurt, I'm grateful for how He's growing me.
For years, I read "pray without ceasing" and thought it meant one long, unending conversation with God. But let me look at the actual Greek word Paul used.
The word Paul uses here is a word they used in that cultural context to refer to a reoccurring cough. When someone says, "I've been coughing all day," they don't mean from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. nonstop. They mean throughout that day, there have been recurring bouts of coughing—urges so strong that no matter how you try to resist, you find yourself coughing in places you didn't expect.
I'm coughing in the car. I'm coughing in the office. I'm coughing in the gym. I'm coughing in the waiting room.
This is what Paul means: throughout the day, you need to be coughing God almighty. When you wake up, cough. When you get to your destination safely, cough. When you see your loved ones alive and well, cough. It's not one long conversation; it's recurring bouts of spiritual coughing throughout the day.
This is crucial because the average person isn't inconsistent with prayer because they lack desire—they're inconsistent because they lack discernment.
Desire provokes us to schedule time with God. Discernment allows us to recognize when God is trying to schedule time with us. It's the ability to recognize that He has given you the spiritual urge to cough.
Paul isn't commanding you to never stop talking to God. He's commanding us to never stop being available to talk. This is about following the prompts—the urges God gives you to pray.
For those familiar with Paul's teaching on "praying in the spirit," listen carefully: Praying in the spirit is not only praying in tongues. Praying in the spirit includes praying in response to the Spirit's prompts. It's praying when the Spirit, through your intuition or through your mind, gives you a burden and urge to pray.
The Spirit knows the mind and will of God. He knows what is happening, what is getting ready to happen, what shouldn't happen. There are some interventions God won't engage in without our invitation through prayer.
Prayer doesn't notify God of a need—He already knows it. But prayer expresses your dependency and frees you from the idolatrous practice of thinking you can meet all your own needs. Every time you pray, God is reminding you that there are situations revealing your human limitations, and you need Him to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.
The Spirit will prompt you when He sees something coming or something that shouldn't come. But the prompting doesn't come with explanation, and because it doesn't, it's easy to ignore.
You might be on the treadmill and someone's name comes to your mind randomly. You have no idea why. But the Spirit planted their name in your mind because there's an accident waiting on them. Your children might be at prom, and something comes to your mind. The Spirit is prompting you to pray.
It's easy to ignore promptings in things that matter because God trains us with promptings in things that don't matter. He will teach us to obey promptings in prayer by giving us promptings outside of prayer.
You're driving somewhere and something tells you, "Don't go this way." You go that way anyway and hit a traffic jam. You think, "Something told me not to go that way." That won't change your eternal destiny, but God is teaching you the consequence of not following promptings. He uses something that doesn't matter to show you the importance of following promptings when it comes to things that do matter.
Promptings happen not just spiritually but also naturally. Let me give you four ways you can discern when God is prompting you to pray:
When you sense a shift in your soul—from joy to sadness, to despair, to disappointment, to discouragement—that's a prompting to pray.
David models this in Psalm 42: "My soul, why are you downcast? Why are you disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and Lord."
One writer says, "Feelings aren't always right, but they're real. They are the language of the soul." She compares them to a check-engine light on your car. The light doesn't tell you what's wrong, but it tells you to look under the hood.
When you're in despair, when you're downcast, when you're not experiencing the peace of God or the joy of the Lord, you need to check under the hood. A shift in your mood is a prompting to pray because God cares about the state of your soul.
I grew up in church, and there was a subliminal message that feelings are too trivial to pray about. But God cares about the intricate details of your life. He numbers the hairs on your head. God cares about the state of your soul. When you don't recognize this as a prayer prompting, you stay in soul cycles inconsistent with the Father's intention for your life.
We talk about sin cycles, but there are also soul cycles. You sit discouraged and don't pray about it. When you're frustrated and that frustration is impacting the way you engage with those you love, you need to bring that to God. "Lord, this frustration is not their fault. We need to talk about this."
Moments are adversity or opportunity. Both can be prompting to pray because both can make you nervous.
Nehemiah is an example. The king asked him, "What is it you want?" Nehemiah writes: "Then I prayed to the God of heaven and I answered the king..." (Nehemiah 2:4)
Between the time the king asked the question and the time he answered it, he prayed. He didn't leave the room and spend an hour in intercession. It was quick: "Lord, help me. I need to give a wise response right now."
There are going to be moments when you have to do something quickly. You can't fast and pray over it. In those moments, it's a prompting to pray: "Lord, help me."
Nehemiah was asking for leave from work and military escort. Because he took the opportunity to pray, he didn't let his nervousness rob him of an opportunity the king was ready to give.
When you get word that something is going on—whether about yourself or someone else—that's a prompting to pray.
If you hear someone's child is being deployed, that's a prompting to pray. You don't have to know them personally. Do we have to know people to intercede for them?
Samuel took his intercessory ministry seriously. He said: "For the sake of this great name of the Lord, He will not reject his people because the Lord is pleased to make you his own. As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against God by failing to pray for you." (1 Samuel 12:22)
When you get word that something is going on with somebody, that's a prompting to pray. When you get word that something is going on with you—adversity or opportunity—that's a prompting to pray. A door opened? Celebrate, then pray: "God, give me wisdom to steward this well."
This sounds trivial to us because we live in a cultural context where we pick over what other people wish they had. But meals are not about the chicken. Meals are evidence that God keeps on providing for you.
Every time you look at a meal, you shouldn't call it soul food, Asian food, or Thai food. You should look at it and say, "God, I only have this because You have provided for me."
Practically, the Spirit is nudging us to follow the prompts.
Praying without ceasing isn't one unending conversation. It is bouts of coughing in response to prompting from the Spirit or practical prompting.
I practice before I preach. What this has done for my prayer life and my spiritual life in the past three to four months far exceeds the thirty years I've been walking with the Lord. The intimacy is unmatched. It's an automatic tap-in whenever, wherever. I could be playing pickleball, and I'm coughing: "Thank you, Jesus."
May we follow the prompts.
