How Are You Praying? By Rev. J.

Patrick Bowman For far too long, most of the church has practiced reactive praying. By that I mean the serious, get connected with God kind of praying is held in reserve for times when something disastrous has happened. You know what I mean; an accident of some kind, an illness or death, separation or divorce, job loss or financial crisis. Of course, these are times when we should pray, whether for ourselves, our family, our church, or anyone else involved with such tragedy. But if these are the only times when we are really on our knees before God, then we have a problem. Does God answer prayers we pray after the fact of a bad situation? Of course He does. The scriptures are full of examples. But when the disciples asked Jesus how they should pray, He gave them a proactive model. Most of us know by heart what is today called The Lords Prayer. If we would incorporate its proactive elements into our private and corporate prayers, I believe we would see far fewer situations that would force us to our knees in desperation. We are desperate about our country right now because we failed to pray in a way that honored God as our sovereign and called forth the kingdom of God to be manifest on the part of the earth that we are responsible for. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. How are you praying?