A.J. Gordon is quoted as saying, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” While we may believe that, how often is prayer, our ‘go-to’ response to a situation? I confess that a lot of times I SAY, when I should PRAY. Let’s be real. Prayer takes time. You have to be ready to wait on the Lord, and who wants to do that? Especially when we can just take matters into our own hands. Let me put words to what I’m being taught, and what you may be being taught, too.

God wants us in relationship with Him. He is generous enough to orchestrate our circumstances to help us arrive at the notion that we are finally helpless with a matter and must come to Him. This isn’t the ideal, however. Taking time with Him is the ideal. By just turning our thoughts toward God and being in His Word, He gives us a view of our world and circumstance that is closer to His own. Then the natural thing is to ask for His will to be done, for His help and for His goodness to stretch to others.

Before sitting down with Him, our prayer focus is on what will make us feel better about things. After time alone with Him, His Words come through us and as we’re taught in Isaiah 55:11, “God’s Word does not return void.” This is Him speaking through us and accomplishing His purpose.

Let your prayer today start with His Word coming through you. Begin by giving “thanks, for this is God’s will for you.” Afterward, let your heart be moved by His thoughts through you. — Oh and for all those issues, and people you need to fix? To start, ask God to fill you with His Love and change your own heart and then, remember the great promise of Psalm 138:8… “The LORD will accomplish what concerns me.” Another translation of that verse that I love is, “God’s Word has already come out of His mouth and is on the way toward perfecting that thing that concerns me most.”

My prayer today is that God blesses America. That God’s Love rule first in my own challenged heart, and that all who are directed to receive this word are blessed by it. That means you!