Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.    James 5:16 HCSB

I can’t tell you how many times I have someone speak to me about some type of difficulty they are going through, and I say, “I will pray for you and I usually ask if I can put their name on our prayer list at church.”  And I find myself either forgetting to do that or thinking about it when I’m falling asleep and offering some half-hearted prayer at the end of a long day.

But recently someone dear to my heart reminded me that we need to pray harder. Prayer changes things, I know this. Our Scripture passage tells us to confess our sins to one another, so I am confessing that I often don’t pray as hard as I could or should. I have another confession to make and this one hurt, I often give the problem lip service by grumbling and complaining about it while praying about it.

I was reminded of those Israelites wandering around in the desert for 40 years trying to make a 14-day journey. God took care of them and provided for them, but they never got to the Promised Land because of their grumbling, complaining and idol worship. Maybe if they had stopped complaining and started praying, they would have gotten there.

I believe our problems can become our idols if we are not careful. We like to keep them around subconsciously because they feed our gossip sessions. If we aren’t careful, we can actually grow comfortable in problems and find a need to always have something to grumble and complain about.

What if we quit hashing the problem out and started getting down on our knees and offering urgent prayer to God about these matters? What if we did our best to live as God calls us to live and devoted our prayer lives to making some positive changes in us and for others?

We can’t change things by talking about them, unless we are talking to God about them.

Someone I had thought I was mentoring, mentored me. It humbled me, made me realize how wrong I had been and convicted me.

I know that God is not finished with me yet and I know my prayer life has been leaving something to be desired lately. I am going to commit to praying harder. I am going to commit to fight my biggest battles on my knees. I hope you will join me.

If you are going through tough times or know someone who is and have been offering up half-hearted prayers, prayer harder. If you have been talking about these problems more than you have been praying about them, pray harder.

When my dear sweet, loved one said, “I’m not going to talk about this, I’m going to pray harder.” I couldn’t help but be convicted of my lackluster prayer life as it has been lately. I knew this was a call for me to do the same and to talk less to others about my problems and more to God.

Make notes about all the things you need to pray about. Devote time and find a quiet place to pray about the things in your life and for the people in your life. Then give it to God, let go of it and trust in Him. Matthew 6:6 tells us to go into our room and pray in secret and our Father who sees in secret will reward us and also that when we pray, we should not heap up empty phrases or use vain repetitions.

1 Thessalonians tells us to pray without ceasing. Our prayer should not be something we do out of habit before eating or before going to sleep. Confess your sins and repent, our sin creates a barrier between us and God. Trust in Him. Pray often and pray harder and trust in God to work it all out.

Have a great day!