I recently realized that most of my prayer life consists of intercession or supplication. According to the prayer acronym ACTS (for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication), I am often rushing into God’s presence with my requests without acknowledging His greatness and worth, glossing over confession of my sins, and forgetting to give thanks. ACTS is not the only formula for prayer, but it’s one that works for me—when I take the time to think about it as I approach the King of the universe, my Father.
So many of my intercessory prayers are for healing: cancer, heart disease, neurodegenerative disease, congenital illness, collagen vascular disease, emotional and psychological healing, etc. Second to that are prayers for salvation. I find that I sometimes become discouraged when I have been praying for someone for a long time. I think, “With all due respect, Lord, what’s the point? Why do I pray for these things? You know the needs better than I do, and You will deal with each person and need according to Your will, in Your timing.”
God’s Word tells us to “pray continually” (1 Thessalonians 5:17, NIV). Romans 12:12 admonishes us to “be faithful in prayer.”
Oswald Chambers has written that “The point of prayer is not to get answers from God, but to have perfect and complete oneness with Him.” Oneness with God means my words are completely honest when I pray “Thy will be done.”
So, Marilyn, take time to praise and adore God, to give thanks for all He has done, to confess and ask forgiveness. This is part of praying without ceasing and draws me closer to God, with the ultimate goal of being one with Him.
Jesus prayed for us, that “those who will believe in me through their [the disciples’] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one; I in them and you in me” (John 17:20-23, NIV).
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