Devotional material is taken from Today With The King, written by Robert A. Cook. Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. Used with written permission.
Philippians 4:6-7: In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God... shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Read also Ephesians 6:18-24.
If we are to be men and women of prayer, we must follow definite guidelines.
• Be constant. God wants the best for us, His *born ones,* and the more constant our prayer life becomes the more we shall be able to recognize His divine purposes on our behalf. Certainly, prayer embodies praise, confession, and petition, but underneath all this is the tremendous concept of God Himself talking through you and me, as we pray, thus completing the cycle of real fellowship. Of ourselves we are unable to maintain this relationship, but the Holy Spirit can. He breathes through you and me the kind of prayer that is exactly in line with what God Himself wants to bestow! Make no mistake: this kind of prayer is different from *emergency calls* (*Lord, help me!*), though that kind of petition has its place.
• Be specific. There is nothing unspiritual about asking God for specific things. Much of our praying, it must be admitted, is so general that only God Himself can interpret what we want, and of course He does. But if we are growing in grace and long for lives of real effectiveness in prayer, we must learn to be definite in our dealings with the Almighty. Many a person*s prayer is just a routine moment of thanking God that He is still on the job. You remember the prayer attributed to a little boy at bedtime, *Lord,* he said, *take care of Yourself because if anything happens to You, we*re all sunk.* Let your prayer be to-the-point. Let it be a combination of worship, adoration, and praise, of confession, petition, and intercession.
Small thought here. To cure every form of worry, pray about everything.
The little boy did not understand the eternality of God but he did understand the important truth that God is indispensable.