No One Is Born a Prayer Hero

In the last seventeen years I’ve been on my face before God more times that I can count. I’ve prayed through tears. I’ve prayed with loud cries. I’ve prayed in silence. There have been times I’ve been so overwhelmed I didn’t know what to pray, and I sat there silent.

Now you have to know that I wasn’t born a prayer hero. Far from it. In elementary school I remember praying for a Barbie paper doll book that I wanted. In high school my biggest prayer times were centered around basketball games. As a cheerleader, I wanted our team to win, and so I prayed for that outcome. Most of the time it didn’t work.

Even after I became a mom, and a Christian, my prayer life didn’t change much, but little by little I started turning to God more. My prayer life increased when I started homeschooling kids. Lord, wisdom please! Then my prayer life really grew when I helped to start a Pregnancy Care Center in town. There were so many people with great needs, and I needed God’s wisdom and provision.

My prayer life really grew as John and I adopted six kids from foster care. In four year’s time we adopted two sibling groups, and these kids arrived with loads of pain in their souls and high walls around their hearts. Tears fill my eyes even now as I remember sitting on my pre-teen girls’ bedroom floor as they shouted, screamed and lashed out at me, their new mom. who simply wanted to offer them a home, family, and love. Lord, did you really call me to this? Yes, yes He did. And He called me to Him in the midst of it.

I’ve discovered the secret, you can say, of how to grow your prayer life. To become a prayer hero just do something you are COMPLETELY unequipped to do. Because when you get to the end of yourself the only place to turn is to God.

I talk a lot about this in my new book Walk It Out. The subtitle of this book is: The Radical Result of Living God’s Word One Step at a Time.

Want to grow your prayer life? Follow some of these commands:

…. go into the world and spread the gospel

…. care for the orphans and widows

…. love your neighbor as yourself

…. do everything without grumbling or complaining

None of these things are easy, yet they are all things that God has called us to. As James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

Sometimes the radical results we see when following God’s directives involve lives around us being impacted and changed, but ALWAYS one radical result is that we will be changed. We cannot follow God, depend on Him, and stay the same. Instead, we are different because in our need we get on our knees.

Want to be a prayer hero for your family, your friends, your community, your world? I dare you to walk it out. Take the step you feel God is asking you to take, even if you feel insufficient. The truth is you are insufficient, but when you get on your knees you will discover God in ways you never knew possible.

Walking with Him,
Tricia Goyer