When Prayer becomes Sweet

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. (Ecclesiastes 5:1)

Allow me to say at the outright that I am writing this, not as the warning the verse seems to say, but as an encouragement to pray aright.

This is because we have been inundated with the teaching that prayer is simply a request transaction, for the most part.

Most believers therefore think of prayer only in terms of requesting this or the other.

That is why even fasting becomes vain for most part; because people will only fast because of one crisis or the other, one great need or the other.

But requests are the lowest rung on the ladder called prayer.

Everybody will proudly confess that prayer is communication with God.

But very few really care to examine what that communication entails. Very few care to examine what communication even is.

You see, communication is different from announcing. Communication is different from broadcasting.

Those two are one way disposal of information.

Communication is a two-way exchange of information at the very basic level.

And that basic level does not come anywhere close to what prayer is. Because prayer is communion at its root.

Communion is the whole purpose of prayer.

We see that even when we look at the heathen faiths.

Priests were people who were able to speak and hear from the divine, whichever divine they worshiped.

They went with a sacrifice and plea and came back with an answer and a word.

That we neglect that simple aspect at a time when God has released His Spirit to make communion even sweeter speaks very badly of our practice of faith.

As I have said, requests are the lowest run of prayer. We may call it the introductory aspect of prayer, probably the place where mortal man can approach the divine.

And it is not sin to have requests and pleas.

But it is very sad if that is where one stops because there is so much more for us in prayer,

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Matthew 7:7)

Asking is the starting point, not the destination.

But stopping there makes us leeches, sad to say.

The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. (Proverbs 30:15a)

These are not my words. But they represent what many people associate with prayer.

We must therefore get beyond that to something better.

At the next verse is seeking, taking some responsibility in prayer.

I know I have a post on prayer, especially on Matthew 7:7 and so will not dwell on that.

The highest point in prayer is the knocking.

Why do we knock?

We knock because we are interested in the person behind that door.

Incidentally, we do not knock with an agenda.

We knock for the purpose of fellowship, communion.

I have also written about the mercy seat, also leaning toward that point.

At that point, we are not interested with what the person behind the door has and can do for us.

We are interested in Him.

We wat to spend time with Him on His terms.

We want to fellowship with Him, again on His terms.

As we were asking, we got to know about His capability to provide.

As we were seeking, we got to know about His wisdom and trustworthiness in guidance

In growing through those aspects, we have gotten to know Him and love Him and completely trust Him.

We have also realised that He seeks to allow us to know Him even more and has even made an invitation on the same.

That is why we are knocking that door.

We want to have fellowship, communion with Him.

That communion does not stop Him being a provider or guide.

It is the pinnacle of those qualities He has.

It makes Him even more because it makes Him a friend since a friend who provides will do a better job of provision than anybody else just as eating at a loving home is better than eating at the best restaurant alone.

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife. (Proverbs 17:1)

Now imagine a party with the ultimate fellowship!

That is where growth in prayer takes us.

This means that if you are content just to be taking your requests to God, you are losing so much because you are at the lowest rungs.

That is why you can’t see much because it is only at higher rungs that you can see the stretch of even that provision you are seeking.

A few examples are in order.

Remember Moses and his double forty days without eating or drinking anything?

Did he lose weight? Did he come famished? Did he come crying for food or water?

He came glowing with the glory of that communion.

Remember he many times did not require to pray to know what God wanted?

That communion had so united him with God and His agenda that he more or less knew how God would react to situations like when he told Aaron to run out because the plague had already started.

From observation we know that people who are always together in communion start behaving and even looking alike.

Isn’t that what God is looking for in us as we commune with Him in prayer?

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? (John 14:9)

That is what communion in prayer produces, likeness.

No wonder Moses started glowing after his communion with ultimate glory.

It is therefore evident that if prayer is not transformational in terms of producing a likeness to God in attributes, it has not become the prayer God is expecting from us.

I always argue against the common mantra that prayer changes things because my experience in prayer has always changed me before it changes things.

The prayer that changes things before changing me is more or less like witchcraft, though even in witchcraft the practitioner is also transformed into the wickedness the practice commands.

That is why Jesus asked us to look for the fruit when assessing whoever is calling himself His servant.

How much like God are they? How holy are they? How do they relate with sin and sinners?

On the part of sin and sinners we see God loving sinners yet completely opposed to sin, whoever is practicing it.

He draws sinners to Himself, yet fights righteous hypocrites until they had to kill Him.

That is what communion in prayer will produce in us, a likeness with His nature.

But there is something important we must get to know.

That progression is not automatic.

Someone can be in the asking position all their lives while another is able to get into that communion a few weeks after their conversion.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

How hungry one is for that communion will determine how easily they are able to access it

Samuel could hear God’s voice in his childhood whereas Eli couldn’t though he was in his nineties.

David could hear it when facing the giant that the army was running away from.

Another important aspect we must handle is the reality that that communion must be maintained for it to thrive.

Sin will always break it. Meaning that for us to maintain the communion we must have a relationship with sin that God has.

Remember that even David who had maintained that communion for long had to seek the restoration of the same?

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. (Psalm 32: 3 – 5)

God seeks that communion.

How responsive are we to that desire of His?