Take aways I’m pondering:
* Our intimacy with God is dependent on our prayer lives. We cannot have a close relationship with him—we cannot experience his power, his wisdom, his peace, his joy—if we aren’t going to him.
* Prayer invites action into our lives by the God who is more powerful than we could ever be on our own.
* What we subconsciously believe to be true about God determines whether we will view prayer as essential and fulfilling or worthless and dull.
* prayer warriors are confident in what they’re praying because they know God’s words and promises.
* “For each prayer request, we should mentally or vocally ask, ‘What possible reason do I have to think that God will answer this prayer?’ We should be able to answer that question from His Word.”
* When we’re not being fed by Scripture, our prayer lives will tend to center on our own immediate needs and feelings.
* You want to see God move in your life? Who will get the glory if he does?…great acts of God are tied to God getting glory.
* We completely forget the big picture when we’re consumed by what we don’t have instead of seeing the full story of the gospel we get to be a part of.
* Psalm 43:3-4: “Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling! Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.” He essentially promised praise. He didn’t know what God would do, but he knew that the results, whatever they were, would be by God’s hand, and he was already prepared to praise God for them. Such confidence.
* As we cover everything in our lives in prayer, we gain confidence from knowing that whatever is to come has been brought to the Lord.
* if what we prayed would occur doesn’t, we can rest in knowing that we do not have because God has something better in mind, not because we didn’t ask.
* When you’re in the midst of suffering, what truth do you need to recall about eternity that would expand the praise you offer?
* The weight of control looks like spending our precious prayer time asking for things that don’t align with God’s will at all—and then, when they don’t happen, suddenly blaming him for not loving us or not being powerful enough to handle our problems.
* We miss out on God’s comfort in the hard times when we move away from him because we hoped for something different.
* Can you imagine if we punctuated the hard moments of life with “and the Lord was with me”? Let’s not just imagine. Let’s do it right now. Identify what you are currently waiting for and sprinkle “and the Lord is with me” throughout your description.
* A day of fasting is a day spent fighting my own desires and trading them in for something better…Your sacrifice isn’t just a symbolic act. You are telling God with your whole being that you trust his plan more than your own.
* A year from now, will we be able to say we spent more time with God than we did in the previous year?
* Through prayer, we can be involved in Kingdom work that we’d never be able to do in person.