LISTEN to Jesus Teach Us to Pray
I have sensed over the past couple of months that GOD has been wanting to teach me about prayer. I’ve known for a long time that it’s good to pray and that I’m supposed to, but to be honest, I’m not sure I’ve completely understood it. My mom and dad taught me how to pray when I was younger. I would lay in bed at night with my eyes closed and my hands pressed together, thanking GOD for all of the things I enjoyed in life. When I forgot to say thanks for something, my parents would chime in and help me remember all that GOD had given me. They were there right beside me, teaching me how and what to pray.

I knew that there was this being named GOD that I couldn’t see and I knew that I needed to thank him, so I did, every night. As I got older I started to pray by myself, well, I should say the nights that I didn’t forget or the ones that I didn’t fall asleep before finishing. I also remember starting to ask GOD for different things during my prayers-for healing of my friends’ parents with cancer, for forgiveness when I sinned or for GOD to let me be in class with my friends. The two phrases that I used when praying were “Thank you GOD for…” and “GOD, please give me…” And that’s basically been the extent of my prayers.

But, GOD has been stirring something deep inside of me lately. Its as if GOD has been saying, “There is so much more that I desire for you, so much more that I have waiting for you, if you will only let me teach you about the power, about the goodness, about the fullness of prayer.” How could I not want that? How could I not want more intimacy with GOD, more awareness of His presence, more time with Him?

The truth is, I DO want that. I want it more than anything. And I want it for YOU and I want for HIS church! I want prayer to be more than just five obligatory minutes we give to GOD every morning. I want it to be more than just something we do when bad things happen and when we need GOD to bail us out. I want prayer to be…..more! But I don’t know how. I don’t know how to make it more than what it is. I don’t know how to experience the fullness of what GOD wants for us in prayer. I’ve been stuck for so long, offering the same rote prayers over and over. It’s so hard for me to grasp that prayer could be something more, something different than what it is in my life, yet I know I feel GOD saying, “Let me show you.”

This upcoming teaching series is something I’m not used to. I typically pick a theme or a topic and I know exactly how I want to teach it, but this is different. I’m not an expert on prayer, in fact, I don’t really know much about it, which is a great thing. It means we must let GOD do the teaching and Him the informing. It means we rely on Him to guide us and Him to reveal. It means….we are in trouble unless GOD shows up! Join us as we put ourselves in a place for GOD to teach us as we beg together, “Jesus, Teach Us To Pray.”

In Him,

Brandon Steele