Becoming Men and Women of PRAYER

by Dan O’Deens

I had to stop.  Enjoying a cup of coffee and the deer in the back of our yard, I saw something move.  It caught my attention.   It was clearly a reminder from God how important prayer is.  Have you ever seen a praying mantis?

NOW IS THE TIME to become men and women of prayer.  Only God can move mountains but prayer and faith move God.  Every vision is taken into the valley and it is there that so many faint and give way.  Only those who endure the valley experiences of life will ever get to see their vision come to fruition.

Friend, stay the course.  Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.  Proverbs 3:5,6

As I think of prayer my mind immediately went to one of my favorite prayers, prayed by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21.  Paul paints the picture of a prayerful man from the knees to the guts, to the heart, to the mind.  It is a powerful display of when we fully understand the power of prayer and our utter dependence on God, that we experience break throughs in the difficulties of life.

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge (mind); that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Ephesians 3:14-21