Prayer
by Daily Bible Reading. When should I pray? What are the benefits of praying? These questions and more will be answered in this article.
Prayer
“Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud; and he shall hear my voice.” (Psalm 55:17)
Here in this verse is a good exhortation to pray. None of us pray as we ought to pray, so this exhortation needs to be taken to heart. This verse speaks about the periods of prayer, the passion in prayer, and the promise for prayer.
Periods of prayer. “Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray.” Most people have trouble praying once a day. Our verse speaks of praying at three scheduled times a day. But three times a day seems too much. People will complain that they do not have time to pray three times a day. But Daniel prayed three times a day (Daniel 6:10), and he was a high official in the government at the time. Folk can watch TV by the hour, and spend much time reading newspapers and magazines and books, so they have no excuse for not praying more. And three times a day is not too much.
Passion in prayer. “Cry aloud.” These times of prayer were not casual but earnest. “Cry aloud” tells us that. It is not necessary to always cry aloud in order to be earnest—that is not the lesson here. The lesson is that crying aloud indicates earnestness and that earnestness needs to be part of our prayer life if we are going to pray effectively. It is the “fervent prayer” (James 5:16) that “availeth much” (Ibid.). Elijah, though a “a man subject to like passions as we are” (James 5:17) “prayed earnestly” (Ibid.) and got things done for God as a result. If we are not earnest in our praying, we cannot expect God to be earnest in response to our prayers.
Promise for prayer. “He shall hear my voice.” This promise means God will answer your prayers. We do not pray in vain. A holy God in heaven hears our prayers and will respond to them. This promise ought to inspire us to pray if nothing else does. It is a tremendous encouragement to know that Almighty God, the creator of the universe, will hear our prayers and respond to them. Though lowly and obscure and humble we may be, God still hears our prayers. You may not be able to get government officials to hear your pleas. But Someone bigger than any government official will hear you.
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