Man Ought Always To Pray…

Prayer is probably one of the most talked about concepts in the Christian community. There are many sermons, books, devotionals, songs, movies, and everything else you can imagine that already talks about prayer, yet here I am about to add to that list…

Before we even get to it, let it be established that Jesus Himself is the one who said EVERYONE MUST PRAY ALWAYS (paraphrase), so of course, let’s talk about it…

Luke 18:1 (AMPC) Also [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up).

Before my varsity internship, the idea was to get a paying internship that would enable me to take over the paying of my fees for the last two years of varsity, including that year of internship. Despite my efforts, this, unfortunately, did not become a reality.

Because we kept the hope up that I could get a paying one at some point, my varsity fees for that year were not paid on time. And, as life would have it, just when I finished my internship, the university abruptly announced that any student on internship, who had not yet paid their full fees by the previous month was no longer going to proceed with their education the following semester. If anything, they would defer for a year as they sorted out their arrears and would only get to proceed after a year. They also matter-of-factly stated that this was not up for discussion or negotiation and that it was a final irreversible decision.

This was news I did not welcome with a happy face. I did not want to defer for an entire year, I mean, what would I spend that year doing at home? I knew at that moment that I had to find a solution to this new roadblock and I set it in my heart that I would pray my way to victory. This was not such a promising situation because many panicked students (& parents) immediately rushed to pay their fees hoping that the university would pardon them but that yielded no positive results.

While I already had somewhat of a prayer life, this time, I knew I needed to up my prayer so I decided to fast and spend my afternoons at the local church praying for a turnaround in this verdict that was not in my favor. On most days, there was no one else at church so I had the freedom to pray out loud without worrying about what the next person thought about my prayer points.

This is how my prayer routine would go: I would get there, spread what then became my prayer shawl of sorts (a Zambia cloth in Zimbabwean lingo), then sit on top of it, open my bible, and casually talk to God like I would a friend about how He is said to be a constant being that doesn’t change and how He was the one who did all those things in the Bible and how I was now also wanting the same from Him.

I would read out loud to Him the stories I thought were relevant to my situation, particularly the Esther one and after reading to Him, I would hold Him accountable for replicating it for me.

My prayers were not as dramatic as a desperate person would typically pray; there was no screaming, shouting, stomping, pacing, clapping or binding & loosing (although these too are effective types of prayer), it was just very casual conversations of ‘this is who You say You are, UNCHANGING, this is what you have done before & because of that, this is why I am asking you to do this now and I am very much anticipating that you are going to do it‘.

It also had hints of ‘I am as much your daughter as Hannah & when she came to your temple just like how I have come to your temple, you answered her so I know you will answer me‘ and ‘I am as much threatened by a contrary verdict that an authority has issued as Esther was, and I am equally fasting and praying about it so I expect no different outcome from Esther because she prayed to the same You that I am praying to right now…’

My prayers might have been the most innocent and probably immature ones, but looking back now, they were very Biblical because I diligently pulled out my reference points from the Bible and stated that that is exactly what I anticipated.

Philippians 4:6 (AMPC) Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God.

It would interest you to know that during one of the days while I was still sitting at church having one of my conversations with God, I got a notification that stated that the Minister of Higher & Tertiary Education at the time had ‘somehow’ happened to be in the city where my university was and after getting wind of what the university’s stance was, he issued his decree to override that verdict. He decreed that he was giving just a few days (less than a week, must have been at most 5) to any student who was willing to pay up to do so and continue with their studies as normal. I almost could not believe it! God had answered my prayers and they were going to not only impact me, but every other student who was in my shoes! Eeeeek!!!

Fast-forward to the last day of that grace period, I traveled to my university to pay the fees with the exact amount it was supposed to be. This was a very last-minute rush so it took my aunt a gigantic sacrifice & possibly a lot of running around to get a year’s worth of varsity fees for me in that short time.

Let me just say God works in the most miraculous of ways because while I was in that queue, a classmate of mine who happened to be in front of me, just happened to discover that, because her dad’s company had been responsible for paying her fees, they had been overpaying it for the last two years. The explanation for this was supposedly because the company had a flat fee they paid for every varsity student and it so happened that her fees were cheaper than this flat fee. So not only did she not need to pay for the current year, but she had a lot of extra money in her account.

Although she excitedly and randomly decided to share with me her good news, this could have easily been none of my business until it was! This was after I was informed of a mysterious $21 I owed in my fees and that if I did not pay it, I would defer as initially stated. I could not quite understand the logic of its existence and had no extra $21 with me, so I asked the newly rich girl to lend me that money with the promise that I would pay her back once I got home and she was willing to help. The campus was packed with many students trying to beat the deadline that day so it didn’t make sense why she would choose me to tell me of her fortune, we were not even friends!

When you hear that prayer works, please believe that it does. In fact, don’t just believe that it works, praaaaay!

I believe with my head held high that my prayers brought that minister to that town to change that verdict. I believe with my chest that my prayer turned around the destiny of not just me, but hundreds of other students, possibly even thousands who were going to defer that year had I not prayed. I believe again with my whole heart that God placed that girl in front of me in the queue so that even when I could defer because of the $21 I didn’t have, I wouldn’t! I was not friends with this girl, she really had no reason to tell me she now had a $1000 that she had not anticipated to have. PRAYER WORKS!!!

I know the problem is not even that we don’t know that prayer works, or that we don’t believe that it works. You see, it is easier to listen to a sermon about prayer, it is easier to read a book about prayer, it is easier to even attend a prayer conference, it is easier to plan to pray or think of praying or talk about praying than it is to ACTUALLY pray. Prayer takes discipline and most times, sacrifice. To the flesh, it is not the most enjoyable exercise until perhaps you have successfully killed your flesh in that regard.

Because it is seemingly hard, doesn’t mean you can get away with not doing it. God operates on His principles and He interacts with us based on those principles and prayer happens to be the channel He established to be a channel of communication with Him and a channel through which He can intervene in our situations.

God is sovereign and He could do whatever He wanted if He wanted, but He chose to give us free will too meaning we have the freedom to choose whether or not we want Him to intervene in our affairs. Prayer is how you permit Him to intervene in your life. If He just did what He wanted whenever He wanted in our lives, we would accuse Him of being a tyrant who just forces His will on us.

God loves you with everlasting love, He has good plans for you but you have to want to receive those good plans from Him and actually say so to Him (in prayer) for Him to give them to you. Of course, there are times when God just goes ahead and does good for us without us even asking, but this is the exception, not the norm, an overflow of His goodness, not an excuse to not pray.

You would almost think that with the rate at which prayer is talked about, every average believer would do it. Unfortunately, prayer doesn’t come naturally to anyone, it is a personal decision and commitment, one that requires a lot of dying to the flesh, because no one’s flesh rejoices at the idea of praying. It is a spiritual discipline that annoys the flesh.

With prayer, this is what I have realized, the more you train/force yourself to pray, the more likely you are to pray. The less you train/force yourself to pray, the less likely you are to pray. I cannot stress enough how necessary prayer is for your survival on this earth, but I sincerely hope you pray…

Let us…wait for it, wait for it…PRAY

Heavenly Father, I thank You for having an open channel of communication with us. What a privilege it is that we get to come before You, the Most Supreme of All, and You pay attention to us and work on our behalf too. Today we pray for our prayer lives, revive them Lord, and return us to a place of hunger and thirst in you. Let us be like little children who report every little detail to their parents as many times as can be annoying. May we have the same trust, reckless abandon, and consistency as of little children when it comes to You Lord. Prayer is the most result-yielding tool you gave us, draw us to the place of prayer not only when situations are desperate but also when we are filled with gladness. In Jesus’ matchless name, we pray. Amen!