Thy Face, O Lord, I shall seek

One of the areas I desire to grow in is prayer, and it has been a desire for a couple of years. Although the growth has been slow (sometimes painfully slow) I can see the Lord's work and I am thankful for the people/ resources he has put in my life throughout these years.

Currently one of the most helpful resources in my life is going through the study Becoming a Woman of Prayer with my mentor Ruth. It is a good reminder of how necessary prayer is and a helpful guide in how to make me intentional about spending time in prayer. O. Hallesby said,

"To pray is to let Jesus come into our hearts. This teaches us, in the first place, that it is not our prayer which moves the Lord Jesus. It is Jesus who moves us to pray. He knocks. Thereby He makes known His desire to come in to us. Our prayers are always a result of Jesus' knocking at our hearts' doors."

I'm so glad that he knocks.

One of the most amazing things to me about prayer is that God himself invites us in! He invites us to bring our prayers and petitions to him, and tells us in Hebrews to "draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." In Matthew 7 he reminds us that he is our Father and that he desires to give good things to his children. But the key is that we have to ask.

However, prayer is ineffective if it is not done in the Spirit and without us being in the Word. I like what R.A. Torrey said,

"Indeed the whole secret of prayer is found in these three words, in the Spirit. It is the prayer that God the Holy Spirit inspires that God the Father answers...The one who would pray in the Spirit must meditate much upon the Word, that the Holy Spirit may have something through which He can work. The Holy Spirit works His prayers in us through the Word, and neglect of the Word makes praying in the Holy Spirit an impossibility. If we would feed the fire of our prayers with the fuel of God's Word, all our difficulties in prayer would disappear."

My increased desire is that I would know God more and that I would read his word and that I would pray more. The Lord is pleased when we come to him. When we do, we are putting our dependence on him instead of trying to do things on our own. I want to pray like Asaph in Psalm 73: 25-26:

"Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.