Now as to prayer. You find great resistance to prayer from outside because Satan fears prayer. Through prayer and the teaching of the Spirit you take hold of all the resources of God to live a holy life that is well pleasing to Him. Your enemy doesn’t want this. “Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
You open your bible. You humble yourself to God, admitting you don’t understand it. These are expressions of faith in God and they open the heart and mind for the Spirit to teach you. ” ‘For my hand has made all these things, and so all these things came to be,’ says Yahweh: ‘but I will look to this man, even to he who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word’ ” (Isaiah 66:2).
You read it carefully. You are struck by some thought or meaning—a promise, warning, teaching, encouragement. You talk to the Lord about it. You pray that you live according to it. You consider how you are now living contrary to it and what you would do or think differently to conform to that truth. In this way you are responding in faith to the word. You are praying to God to get His will done. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire” (Matthew 26:39).
If the idea is important and worth pursuing, you should note it on paper with the verse and pray about it regularly until the truth comes alive to you. Perhaps a verse shows that you need patience. Note that verse and what to pray about. You pray over time until you find greater patience in trials. God has answered your prayer according to His word!
Praying according to His will revealed in scripture is the best way to get answered prayer. Your spiritual enemy hates this. This manner of praying will undo his work in you. By writing down your prayer subjects, you have a prayer list that helps you jump into prayer immediately. With my own prayer list I stay focused in prayer.
I have a long prayer list that includes a section for different people to pray for (such as my pen pals), and another section where I pray the promises. Another section reminds me of the importance of prayer itself, to keep the vision alive. This list helps me stay focused in prayer. My mind doesn’t wander as much; a glance at the list quickly brings me back. Prayer time is not all about prayer. Between those sections are breaks to praise the Lord and thank Him for His blessings: people and relationships, health, spiritual riches, and simple things.
This is assuming you are dedicating a period of time just for prayer. But as a new creation, you are now alive to God. You may talk to Him all day long wherever you go, whatever you are doing. Thank Him for the food and drink. Thank Him for the few freedoms you have there; don’t take anything for granted. Thank Him for the opportunity to get to know Him better. My other pen pals have told me how glad they were to be in prison to take the time to learn of and pursue the Lord, or their lives, and those around them, would have been destroyed.
The people around you will discourage you from reading the bible and praying in part because your attempts remind them of their guilt in that they are not doing it themselves. They want to bring you down to a lower level while you want to rise to a higher level. Watching people succeed where they have failed upsets them. Stay the course. You will be rewarded far beyond what you can imagine. I am 40 years ahead of you down the spiritual journey and can say it is worth it all to keep going.
You said you’ve lost all motivation for anything. I hope these few words will renew your zeal for life. Prayer and the word are the very means God uses to communicate life to us. So it’s no wonder that you are being attacked on both fronts, within and without. “He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up” (Luke 18:1).
In Christ,
Steve
