Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Day 6
Over the years I've
developed a handful of prayer mantras that I regularly repeat. By prayer
mantra, I simply mean a prayer that gets into your spirit and you fell led to
pray over and over again! It obviously
must meet the two-fold litmus test of every other prayer: it must be IN the
will of God and FOR the glory of God.
But it can be a prayer of praise, a prayer for help, a prayer of
surrender, a prayer of confession.
One of my prayer mantras as a
preacher is simply: "Help me help people." It's my way of reminding myself how much I
need God's anointing. People don't need to hear a word I have to say, but
everyone needs a word from the Lord. I find myself repeating that prayer as
Iprep for messages.
One of my prayer mantras for my kids
is a prayer blessing I've taken from Luke 2:52: "May you grow in wisdom
and stature and in favor with God and with man." I've prayed that prayer thousands of times.
My newest one? This past week I found myself praying
"whatever." It's a simple
expression of surrender to the Lord--I'll do whatever you want me to do!
Whatever. Wherever. Whenever. For the
record, I think one-word prayers can be some of the most powerful prayers. God
responds to a heartfelt cry for "help" when we don't know what else
to ask for!
There is something powerful about
prayer mantras that we pray repeatedly.
You have to make sure they don't become an empty incantation. And prayer mantras are not someabracadabra
that work like magic. After all, God doesn't respond to our words as much as He
responds to our hearts. God is not a
genie in a bottle and our wish is NOT His command. His command better be our wish!
The most powerful prayer mantras are
biblical. It's as simple as turning the
word of God into a prayer. You can even
pray the prayers of Peter or Paul. Or the prayers of Jesus. Isn't that what we're doing when we pray The
Lord's Prayer? Just make sure that you
own them andthey own you. Otherwise
you've giving God lip service! But
something powerful happens when you take someone else's prayer and it explodes
in your heart and you give expression to it. I often close conference sessions
with this prayer mantra and I pray it with all of my heart because I know it
was Jesus' prayer:
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be
done."
