What if...

Prayer

Today I went to my first Tuesday night prayer meeting. I was finally able to attend now that I am not working anymore.

Our group of seven prayed for about an hour in Morrow. As we prayed through ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving & Supplication) and took some time to share about our personal lives I began to imagine...

For the many students who feel alone and discouraged, how much would their lives be changed if they had a group of close friends to pray with every week?

What if there was a fellowship of Christians, in which their faith in God and love for one another was so great, that they delighted greatly in praying for one another?

What would Rutgers be like if Christians were consistently caught in a wave of passionate prayer for their campus?

What kind of leaders would be raised by God if many humbled themselves before Him daily in earnest, passionate, broken-hearted, joyful, biblical prayer?

John Piper on prayer:
"So how is God glorified by prayer? Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy."

"We get up day after day and realize that significant times of prayer should be a part of our life, but nothing's ever ready. We don't know where to go. Nothing has been planned. No time. No place. No procedure. And you know as well as I that the opposite of planning is not a contagious flow of deep, spontaneous experiences in prayer. The opposite of planning is the rut. If you don't plan a vacation, you will probably stay home and watch TV. The natural, unplanned flow of spiritual life sinks to the lowest ebb of vitality. There is a race to be run and a fight to be fought. If you want renewal in your life of prayer, you must plan to see it.

Therefore, my simple exhortation is this: I urge you to take ten minutes this afternoon to rethink your priorities and how prayer fits in. Make some new resolve. Try some new venture with God. Set a time. Set a place. Choose a portion of Scripture to guide you. I've had to do this myself because I got caught off guard by the stress of these busy days. We all need mid-course corrections. Make this a great day of turning to prayer—for the glory of God and for the fullness of your joy."