Mike Bickle - Growing in Prayer: A Real-Life Guide to Talking with God

Chapter 1
CALLED to PRAY

As it is the business of tailors to mend clothes and cobblers to make shoes, so it is the business of Christians to pray.
MARTIN LUTHER

W E BEGIN OUR journey of growing in prayer by acknowledging that prayer is not onlyfor beginners but also for mature believers. Otherwise there would be no point intrying to grow in it! The Lord calls every believer to a life of prayerno matterhow long he has been saved or how experienced he is in prayer. The bestthing all of us can do to improve ourselves, our lives, and our relationships isto grow in prayer and abiding in Christ.

Prayer is a means of connecting with the Holy Spirit, who energizes us to love God.Our love for God then causes us to overflow in love for others. Jesus made an absolutestatement about our inability to walk in the fullness of our destinies in God withoutgrowing in prayer. He said that unless we abide in Him, we can do nothing relatedto bearing fruit or maturing in our spiritual lives:

He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

JOHN 15:5

Because we are not the source of spiritual life ourselves, we cannot generate it,nor can we receive it unless we abide in Christ. Just as it is impossible for usto jump a hundred feet even if we push ourselves, it is impossible for us to generatespiritual life. It is not an issue of practice; we were not created to be able tojump a hundred feet! And neither were we created to have Spirit-life while livingindependently of the Spirit. We must abide in Christ and grow in prayer to makeour lives work. (For more about abiding in Christ, see chapter 4.)

The Holy Spirit will move in a new and powerful way in your heart and life as youtake time to grow in prayer. The change may not happen overnight, but it will mostcertainly happen. The discipline of prayer will eventually become delight in prayer.Dryness in prayer will gradually be replaced by a vibrant dialogue with God thatwill change your life and result in many answered prayers.

I invite you to begin the next stage of your journey in prayer right now. There isno better time than today. Do not wait for a special spiritual experience to beginto grow in prayer. We grow in prayer by actually praying. Beginners in prayer matureby praying more. It is the same principle we embrace when learning to play a musicalinstrumentwe become better the more we practice.

FROM DUTY TO DELIGHT

In my younger days I loved Jesus, but I dreaded spending time in prayer. I saw prayeras a necessary duty that I had to endure if I wanted to receive more blessing. Inever could have imagined that I would one day be one of the leaders of a 24/7 prayer ministrysuch as the International House of Prayer of Kansas City.

My desire to have a strong prayer life was kindled some forty years ago when I wasabout eighteen years old. My youth leaders told me that I had to develop a prayerlife if I wanted to experience the deeper things of God and enter into the fullnessof my calling. I wanted to live radically for God, so I listened carefully to them.However, the idea of actually taking time to pray was terrible.

I also read a few books on prayer. Especially memorable are those written by LeonardRavenhill and E. M. Bounds, who wrote some of the classics on prayer and revival.After reading their books, I was even more convinced of my need to grow in prayer,but the thought was daunting. The books inspired me but left me feeling guilty aboutthe lack of prayer in my life. I felt spiritually stuck and desperate for a breakthrough.

In the summer of 1974 one of my youth leaders exhorted me to set aside an hour everyday for prayer, and I determined to try. I was a freshman at the University of Missouri,living in a student apartment with three other believers. I told them, I will prayan hour a day, even if it kills me. My announcement brought an element of accountability,knowing that each night they would watch me to see if I actually kept my commitment.So I set my prayer time from nine to ten each night. I referred to it as the hourof death because it was so boring I felt as if I was going to die.

At 9:00 p.m. I began my hour of prayer by mentioning everything I could think ofto God. I exhausted my entire list in about two minutes: Thank You, Jesus, for myhealth, for food, for my friends. Please help me score touchdowns on the universityfootball team, help me get a good wife, and help me make good grades.... I lookedat my watch, and I still had fifty-eight minutes to go! Some of those prayers werenever answered. I did make the university football team, but I never made any touchdowns,and I made only average grades. But hey, I did get the girland a really good oneat that! Diane and I have been married for thirty-seven years. She is an amazingwife and mother and a genuine woman of God who has sought the Lord diligently andconsistently throughout our years together.

I endured that dreadful hour of prayer night after night. I did not like it at all.I enjoyed activities such as going to worship services and attending Bible studiesto hear teaching. I liked engaging in ministry activity and going on missions trips.But when I got alone to pray or read the Bible, I found it confusing and boring.However, I really wanted to grow in God, so I knew I had to stick with this prayerthing until I developed a real life in prayer. I was determinedbut not very hopefulthat it would work for me.

A NEW VIEW OF PRAYER

To be successful, I needed a new perspective on prayer: I needed to know what prayeris and why the Lord insists on it. As I discovered answers to these questions, Ibegan to see prayer as so much more than a religious duty to endure. I learned thatit is a place of encounter, a way to receive blessing, an act of partnership withGod, and much more.

Prayer is a place of encounter.

At first I thought of prayer as a necessary duty that was mostly results-oriented.I imagined that the Lord wanted me to endure talking to Him to prove my dedication.I saw it as paying the price in prayer, and if I endured it long enough, then Hewould surely give me the blessing I was asking for.

Thankfully the Lord never intended for prayer to be something we do merely out ofduty or to get specific results. First and foremost, prayer is about encounteringGod and growing in relationship with Him. It is the means by which we most feel Hispresence and receive love from Him as we gain understanding of what He is like. Itis the time when we receive fresh insight into His heart and when new desires inour hearts are formed so that we may commune deeply with Him. Prayer positions usto be energized to loveto love God and people. This is the foundational principleof prayer. Yes, it is biblical to pray to get answers and to see Gods power. Butprayer is first of all an opportunity to commune with God.

The call to prayer is a call to participate in the love that has forever burned inGods heart. From eternity past the Father has loved the Son with all His heart,and the Son has loved the Father with the same intensity. The primary factor in theFathers relationships, both within the Godhead and with His people, is wholeheartedlove. The family dynamics among the Father, Son, and Spirit are based on and flowin this wholehearted love. This love is the foundational reality of the kingdom ofGod. It is this very reality that we participate in as we grow in prayer, and itis what prayer is mostly aboutthat is, participating in the family dynamics of theGodhead. We do this by receiving Gods love and responding to the Lord and peoplein His love.

We were created to receive and express the burning love that originates in Godsheart. God created the human race to share His love. Why? Simply because God islove (1 John 4:16). No lack in the fellowship within the Trinity prompted God tocreate humans. The Father was not lonely, and He had no needs. The Father, Son, andHoly Spirit are fully satisfied in the joy of the love they have shared togetherfrom eternity past. Yet the Lord created us to share the joy of His love with us.He created us in His image, for loveto receive His love, reflect it back to Him,and share it with others. Love is at the core of our relationship with God, the essenceof salvation, and the foundation for understanding prayer.