Talking to God in Prayer — E.A. Johnston

Prayer Learned Through Affliction

My message this evening, friends, is on the subject of prayer. I've been praying for over 50 years, but I believe I'm still a novice at it. There have been times when I felt that heaven was like brass and my prayers were like lead weights that rose no higher than the ceiling.

I've made the mistake of praying in public for the ears of men rather than the ears of God. That's an easy trap to fall into. I've learned how to pray the hard way, and I don't think there's any other way to learn how to pray.

Prayer Forged Through Suffering

A prayer life is not built beneath sunny skies, but in sorrow-filled nights, in afflictions, trials, and storms of adversity. A prayer life is hammered out on the anvil of affliction, in grief, pain, and disappointment.

A prayer life is built when all human resources are gone and hope is nearly exhausted and all you're hanging on is a tattered thread and a growing storm is on the horizon and it seems like every devil in hell is against you.

I don't believe God hears long lectures in prayer or laundry lists we drag out to dry as much as he hears the groans and heart cries of his children as they cry out to him and anguish a soul. When Hannah prayed for a son, her prayers were bathed in hot tears of anguish a soul.

She was so beside herself in desperate prayer she appeared drunk to Eli the priest, but Hannah was only intoxicated with God. I believe a sob of anguish in prayer soars to heaven with the force of a rocket blast and cries of desperation from the broken-hearted storm heaven with a holy violence.

Persistent Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

God's not deaf. He can hear you even when you think he can't. I believe in importunity in prayer and I believe in persistent, prevailing prayer and I believe in prayer itself because God the Father hears us when we pray.

I've learned the hard way that just because God misses our deadline of deliverance it doesn't mean he has forgotten us. Rather, it means he is at work in us. Satan will use tactics to discourage us in prayer because he fears the prayers of the saints.

He knows prayer can tear down his strongholds and storm his citadels of wickedness in high places. He knows that effective prayer can push back the darkness in a community and set the captives free. As we get older, it doesn't get easier to pray.

I remember Stephen Offord telling me that at age 84 he found it more difficult to pray as more challenges faced him. Prayer is a battle. Prayer is warfare. Prayer is the most difficult work for a Christian.

Prayer as Conversation With the Heavenly Father

Sadly, many of us are out of prayer more than we are engaged in prayer. God has to place us in trying circumstances to get us to talk to him. Prayer is talking to God. Prayer is speaking with our Heavenly Father who always has our best interests at heart.

God's Good Gifts in Answer to Prayer

When he says in Luke's Gospel that if a son shall ask bread, will he give him a stone? That simply means that God will never give us in answer to prayer something that is worthless to us. When he says if he asks a fish, will he give him a serpent?

That means God will never give us in answer to prayer a thing that is dangerous or harmful to us from his perspective. And his perspective is all that matters. He always has our best interests at heart when it comes to answering our prayers.

Faith, Fervency, and Continual Prayer

I believe faith is a big part of prayer and faith must attend our prayers as well as fervency of heart. As an engine works better when it is warmed up so too our prayers have a greater capacity when they arise from a warm heart on fire for God and his glory.

Talking to God in prayer should become as regular to us as breathing. I pray when I wake in the morning and thank God for giving me another day to serve him. I talk to God all day long whether I'm walking down the street or driving down the road.

I'm in communication with the one who hears our petitions. A prayer should be 24 -7. His throne room is always open and he is always ready to listen to what we have to say. I like the analogy found in Psalm 40 where David writes, I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry.

That is a vivid picture, friends, of a sovereign God on his throne as he cups his hand to his ear as he leans over to better hear our prayers. The bottom line is when we talk to God, he listens. We should talk to him more often.

Let us pray.