Lord Transform my Heart

By Carl Brettle, Ministry Director UCB

"Prayer does not equip us for the greater work;
prayer is the greater work."

I attended a prayer meeting once where someone mentioned the phrase ‘Circumcise my heart Lord, that I might be able to pray'.  At the time I thought what a strange thing to pray.  A few weeks later I met someone who literally had some of the tissue surrounding his heart removed so his heart could beat more effectively.  I began to question the depth of my own prayer life with God.

I must admit over the last decade or so, organise conferences, producing publications, teaching and preaching on prayer, I have slowly but surely moved more towards being professional in my relationship with God.  Specific times, praying in certain ways, trying to push God's hand to answer my prayers in a way that's acceptable to me, being too prescriptive.  All of this began to build a hard skin around my heart.  The prayer life which was once tender had become old and tired.

How can we transform and re-invigorate our prayer life?

I suppose in any diagnosis, you have to understand the problem, before you start to work on the solution.

  • Make a list of all the things you think separate you from a great prayer time with God.  Be honest about your lifestyle.
  • Make an appointment with God.  It's crazy to think that I spend my whole week setting time aside for people, for travel, to write emails etc. I was just hoping to squeeze time with God into the mix of that.  These days I set aside quality, with no interruptions.
  • Remember all the great things God had done in your life over the years.  This turned out to be a great faith builder and really encouraged me to tackle all the problem issues I had identified in my life today.
  • Be determined. I had to become determined to continue to meet with God until my desire and love for Him was rekindled.  It was tough some days, when it seemed as you sat down the door bell would ring or the phone would go.  I had to persist until I broke through into some wonderful times of just being with my Heavenly Father.

Prayer is an attitude of the Heart and it is a barometer of the depth of our relationship with Him.  We live in an ‘everything needs to be instant' society, so it's quite hard these days to set aside quality time for anything.  Prayer is also a humbling experience.  To pray is to admit that it's OK to live life without all the answers, and that we have to rely on someone greater than we are to guide us through.  Prayer is often taking a step of faith into the unknown, to allow God to deal with our organised professionalism and bring things back to the basic fundamentals... we are His children, He is our God.  We are here to give ourselves over to Him and allow God to shape us and use us to build His Kingdom, on His terms.  Let Go, Let God in.

"Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance, but laying hold of His willingness."  Martin Luther


Source: Prayer for Today