BridgeWay has launched into the deep of a 40-Day Prayer Adventure. Each day we’ll provide a variety of devotionals, verses, and prayer prompts to encourage you as you the Lord draw closer together. Dive in! The water’s warm, deep and inviting!
So what should I do each day of this 40-Day Prayer Adventure?
Consider this verse from 2 Chronicles 7:14 to be your roadmap.
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14
Once you’ve settled on a time to pray (and more on that in a moment), then do what this verse says. First, humble yourself before God.
“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” (James 4:10).When we come into God’s presence, we’re to come poor in spirit, like a child, like a servant before his Master (Matthew 5:3; Luke 18:17; John 13:15-16).
Though humility is ultimately a matter of your heart, don’t think that what you do with your body doesn’t matter. Scripture makes it clear that the posture of our bodies directly impacts the posture of our hearts. So if you’ve never done it before, or do it rarely, then your first prayer challenge in this 40-day journey (and we’re going to issue several “prayer challenges” along the way) is to hit your knees early and often.
If you think that when Jesus returns, you’ll just stand there before Him with your arms folded, you might want to guess again what your posture will be. And then tell yourself to start practicing for that moment now. “Come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker.” (Psalm 95:5)
Then next, start praying. Start speaking. Let words be heard coming out of your mouth. Pastor Mark Batterson in his book on prayer, Draw The Circle, says, “The first objective of prayer is praying about what to pray about.” Since this prayer adventure is first and foremost about you and God (see Day 1), if you’re not sure where to begin, then say that. “Lord, I’m not sure where to begin. But would you help me to know what to say right now. Teach me how to pray.” Then go with the words or images that flow first into your heart, and talk to God about them.
Then next, seek God’s face. In other words, don’t pray mindlessly. Re-mind (i.e. bring it up over and over in your thinking) that you are in the presence of Almighty God. If your mind wanders, bring it back. Fix your eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). David in Psalm 27:8 says to God, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek.’” Tell God that as well.
Finally, the verse reminds us that ultimately this journey with the Lord we’re on is a moral one. Jesus died on the cross to make us more like himself. We’re to turn from our wicked ways. We usually want to talk to God about the sin we see in other people’s lives, but take a wild guess who the Lord wants to work on first? Only if this 40-Day Journey changes you, can it then go on to change your home, your family, your friendships, your neighborhood, and of course your church.
So when should you pray? Again, it’s up to you and God. But here’s a starting place (and this idea comes from Pastor Mark who began doing this with his church.) Etch into your mind and calendar that at the least, you will pray twice each day. When? (If you need a drum roll, insert one here.)
At 7:14 each morning and each evening.
Wherever you’re at, start by taking a prayer pause at these two times. Then humble yourself, kneel, pray, seek God’s face, and open up your heart to Him. (Mark even tells the story in chapter 3 of how God prompted him to kneel at Gate D-8 in an airport he was in when 7:14 rolled around.)
Let’s start there. And go where God leads.
Here’s a song Michael Card wrote on 2 Chronicles 7:14: