A Lifestyle of Prayer

This program contains portions from the following episodes:

"Walking and Talking with God"

"Unleashing the Power of Prayer"

"A Beautiful Way to Love"

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Dannah Gresh: Hi, I’m Dannah Gresh with Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I once asked a soul-searching question of someone many of us look up to.

Do you ever get frustrated with your prayer life?

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Uhhh . . .

Dannah: Does Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth ever get frustrated with her prayer life?

Nancy: I would say most of my life I have been frustrated with my prayer life!

Dannah: Nancy’s frustration with her own prayer life actually gives the rest of us hope for ours!

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend! I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. Today we’re going to look at ways we can develop and grow prayer as a natural part of our everyday lives. I’m so glad you’ve joined us!

There’s a three-word verse in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. It’s verse 17. Know what it says? “Pray .without . . .” what? Let me hear ya in the back row! That’s right, “Pray without ceasing.” But what does that look like in real life?

I think most of us would say we’d like to improve in that skill, that habit, of constant prayer, right?

I used to really have a prayer life that was stuck in a box. I had nice, neat prayer lists—even a red book I wrote them in. I prayed during devos. I prayed during prayer meetings. I prayed with Bob at meals. By the way, it’s our thirty-fourth wedding anniversary this weekend. I say that only because it ties in. Our marriage went through some really huge challenges. You know what got us through? Prayer!

In fact, it was our challenges in marriage that jolted me out of praying neat, tidy prayer-list kind of prayers to, well, praying without ceasing. I became so desperate for God to breathe life, friendship, hope, passion into our marriage that I started praying 24-7. I had too! Anyone know what I'm talking about? I don’t think I’m an Olympian of a prayer warrior, but I awaken each morning with, “Good morning Jesus.” And all day long He and I just do the day together. I’ve learned and am learning to pray without ceasing. 

Well, if consistent times of passionate prayer and intimacy with God are a struggle for you, I think you’ll be encouraged by some of the tips and ideas we’re about to hear.

Starting with some ideas from one pastor who died in 1892 and one who’s still alive today. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with more.

Nancy: Some of you are familiar with the name Andrew Bonar, who was one of the great nineteenth century Scottish Evangelicals. One of the recurring themes in his life and diary was the fact that he struggled greatly in prayer. He felt many times like he was a total failure in prayer. There's a pastor in our area named Brian Hedges who has written an article on some of the strategies that Bonar developed to strengthen his prayer life. Brian summarizes those lessons in this way.

He says Bonar learned first to pray while traveling. Bonar's diary says,

God has been impressing on me the way of redeeming time for prayer by learning to pray while walking or going from place to place.

And then he learned to give prayer first place every day. His diary says,

By the grace of God and the strength of His Holy Spirit I desire to lay down the rule not to speak to man until I have spoken with God; not to do anything with my hand till I have been on my knees; not to read letters or papers until I have read something of the Holy Scriptures.

When I read that excerpt I thought of my dad, Art DeMoss. The rule for his life was: No Bible reading, no breakfast. And . . . no reading of others materials before reading the Bible. You say, "That sounds so legalistic." I'll tell you, it wasn't legalistic for my dad. It may be for someone else, but for him, it was a joy. It was a delight. It was his necessary food, more necessary to him than breakfast, and he found breakfast pretty necessary. But he found God's Word even more necessary.

So pray while traveling, give prayer first place every day. The third lesson from Bonar's diary is to take advantage of short but frequent praying. His diary said,

Led to think today that my way of praying is chiefly to be by bolts upward, not by very long prayers at one time.

Some of you love praying for very long periods of time. But for some of you, maybe that will take some pressure off your prayer life as you think it doesn't have to be a sweet hour of prayer. It can be continually sending up to the Lord short "bolts" of prayer, as Bonar called them.

And then the fourth lesson that was pulled out of his diary is to pray every hour of the day. His diary said,

I have been endeavoring to keep up prayer at this season every hour of the day, stopping my occupation, whatever it is, to pray a little, seeking thus to keep my soul within the shadow of the throne of grace and Him that sits thereon. 1

In other words, never get very far from prayer. Just consciously take time through the course of the day whatever you're doing to stop and pray.

Kevin DeYoung had a great post on prayer not too long ago. Let me just read some portions of that blog post. He said,

Almost all of us want to pray more frequently, and yet our lives seem too disordered. But in God's mind our messy, chaotic lives are an impetus to prayer instead of an obstacle to prayer. You don't need an ordered life to enable prayer. You need a messy life to drive you to prayer.

And I'm going yes! Then I can do this!

You don't need to have everything in order before you can pray. You need to know you're disordered so you will pray. You need to think to yourself, "Tomorrow is another day that I need God. I need to know Him. I need forgiveness. I need help. I need protection. I need deliverance. I need patience. I need courage. Therefore, I need prayer." If you know you are needy and believe that God helps the needy, you will pray. The heart that never talks to God is the heart that trusts in itself and not in the power of God.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, sharing some thoughts from pastors—ideas to make prayer a normal part of your everyday life.

I have a friend who is a bit of an Olympian when it comes to prayer, Leslie Bennett! She talked about it in a breakout session she led at True Woman 22, last fall in Indianapolis. Her workshop was called “Unleashing the Power of Prayer.” You can listen to all of it at ReviveOurHearts.com but I want to give you a taste of it right now.

At the end of the workshop, Leslie had some fellow prayer warriors come to the front and give some pointers on prayer. Here’s Leslie to introduce Nicole, Becky, and Joy. Let’s listen.

Leslie Bennett: These are my go-to women. When I need prayer, they’re prayer giants. 

This is Nicole Furno. Nicole, what do you do when you don’t feel like praying?

Nicole Furno: The first thing that I want to share with you is, when you don’t feel like praying—this is profound—pray anyway. 

Pray anyway. 

Because ladies, I think about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He asked the disciples to pray for Him. What did they do? They fell asleep multiple times; they feel asleep. They were in the presence of Jesus Christ, and yet they fell asleep three different times. And Jesus said that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

And so, ladies, our flesh is weak. I have to talk to my flesh. I have to say, “Nicole, you will get out of this bed. Nicole, you will strap on those boots. It doesn’t matter how you’re feeling.” Sometimes you have to talk to those feelings and say, “Flesh, I’m not listening to you today, I’m listening to my Spirit today. And the Spirit is saying come away with Me.”

So, when you don’t feel like praying, pray anyway. 

And then, the other thing that I wanted to encourage you ladies with, is find a prayer partner. Someone who will battle in prayer for you. Because, ladies, we are in a battle. We need to put that armor on. God calls us to put this armor on; it’s not a bathing suit that He says to put on. This isn’t a life of leisure, no we’re in a battle until we hit heaven. 

So, part of the way you can battle is battle together and know that you’re not alone. 

Leslie: Amen. Thank you, Nicole. 

All right, Becky Ellerman is on staff at Revive Our Hearts. She is my friend that knows how to abide. But she has shared something with me about attentive prayer, and I think you’re going to be blessed by this. 

Becky Ellerman: Hi everyone. I believe with all of my heart, what has changed my life about prayer is my attentiveness to it. Before I pray, I ask the Lord, because I can’t understand His Word. I say, “Lord open my eyes, open my ears, and open my heart.” And then I go to His Word and then He reveals. Prayer. 

Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night . . .” The word “meditate” in Hebrew means to mutter. It means to verbally talk aloud.

So, it’s just as I’m reading God’s Word. I read it aloud, and I read it slowly. I take time; there’s no other agenda. I want that word to be a living between the Lord and myself. 

Leslie: Amen. Amen. Well, this is Joy McClain, and she is a huge prayer warrior. Her family has gone through a recent situation where the Lord did not answer her prayers in the way that she had hoped. So, I know that God has been teaching her a lot. 

So, I asked Joy if she would share about that. 

Joy McClain: Yes, just three months ago, almost to the day, my daughter, who I had prayed for, who was expecting identical twin boys. I thought I had the best prayer warriors on the face of the earth. These women were praying, we were crying out, there was fasting. Who doesn’t pray for a healthy baby? Let alone two boys?

One had a zero percent chance, but our God’s a big God, heaven rules. My daughter had to have a violent emergency c-section. Little Logan spent two months in the NICU and just came home a few weeks ago. He’s thriving, so adorable.

And our sweet Benjamin, who we had cried out so specifically, prayed Scripture over, all these things you’re going to hear, went from the beauty and safety and warmth from my daughter’s womb straight into his earthly father’s arms and after a couple of minutes into the presence of Jesus. 

Was heaven cruel? Did heaven stop ruling? Where was God? I’ll tell you where heaven was. Heaven stepped down into our grief, into our sorrow, into . . . I cannot do this; I can’t even make sense of this. He swallowed us up with His mercy and His compassion. 

I have been a praying woman. I was a praying wife. I prayed for twenty-two years for my husband, who praise God, came to bow down in surrender. But I have known times in my life, and I know you have too, when God said, “That’s not what I have this time. But I still rule. I still rule, with love and compassion.” 

And if we remember Jesus, wasn’t He called Man of Sorrows? Doesn’t He identify with my sorrows? Wasn’t He in that garden alone, essentially? “God, I don’t want to do this, this is hard, take it from Me. Not My will but Yours.” 

And then when He was obedient to go to the cross, what does He say to the Father? “This hard, I can’t do this, oh God oh God, why have You forsaken Me?” 

Did heaven stop ruling at the cross? No!

The cross was necessary because a loving, compassionate God loves you, loves me. I held the stiff body of my beautiful Benjamin. How does a woman get through that? How do I watch my daughter hold her infant and weep over that?

Because heaven rules with grace and mercy and tenderness so much so, He gave you His Son—His only Son. My friends, whatever you’re praying for, there is nothing that is out of the reach of the compassionate arm of the Savior. Nothing. He is with you; He is for you. Heaven doesn’t just rule, heaven rules with compassion and complete and utter love. 

Dannah: Wow! Isn’t that so good? We heard from Nicole Furno, Becky Ellerman, and Joy McClain, speaking at our recent True Woman conference, where the theme was “Heaven Rules.”

Prayer has been our theme for much of the month of April here at Revive Our Hearts. We want to do all we can to help you grow in this area of your life, including sending you a book titled Finding the Words to Pray: Fifty Scriptures to Guide Your Prayers. This is a book that will help you do exactly what Becky Ellerman was just talking about: attentively reading a passage from the Bible, and then speaking words back to God based on His Word. 

It’s our “thank you” gift for your donation of any size to Revive Our Hearts. To give, head to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Ask about the book of Scripture passages for prayer when you call. Again, that number is 1-800-569-5959.

Speaking of prayer, did you know there’s an important prayer-related day happening this coming Thursday? It’s the National Day of Prayer. Well, the National Day of Prayer Task Force—of which I was a part for many years—is a team of mostly volunteers dedicated to planning and organizing much of what happens on the National Day of Prayer. 

That team is led by the most amazing woman! Oh, I get chills thinking about her. I’m talking about the president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, Kathy Branzell. I met her in February of 2021 when she was a guest on our weekly videocast Grounded. The first words out of her mouth before we were live on Grounded were, “I’ve been praying for you guys.”

And I immediately knew, “Kathy Branzell lives out a lifestyle of prayer. I have a lot to learn from her.” 

Some time later, Nancy, Kathy, and I sat down to talk about the National Day of Prayer and just about prayer in general. Here’s Kathy Branzell.

Kathy Branzell: So many people grab me in an elevator or in a restaurant and they go, “Teach me to pray. I want to pray; I want to love people, but I just don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how!”

And prayer really is a beautiful way to start loving people. Jesus taught us to pray. He commanded us to love. He said, “This will be your character; this is how people will know you’re My follower, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 

Well, how has Jesus loved me? He was praying for me early in the day and late at night. And so, in that, look at your schedule every day. This is why I was praying for you back in February, because you were on my schedule for the next day.

I looked up to see who all I would be with, what names could I find—even the tech people and who all was involved in this production. And I started praying for you by name and whatever Scripture God had laid on my heart that day. That’s what I was praying for you.

I had never met you. But that is a wonderful way to love one another and to love people you have never even met.

Dannah: And to be like Jesus!

Nancy: Robert and I have found in the years we have been married just such a joy in stopping and praying with people all along the way. People like those we met through his cancer journey, with people who have come into our home to make repairs, or those serving us at a restaurant, or those at an airport helping with the ride to a hotel, or those at different places along the way.

We have found so many rich opportunities to touch lives by just thanking people for their service, acknowledging them. Robert calls some of these people the “shadow people,” because who notices the receptionist who’s letting you in the building when you’re on your way to a doctor appointment?

But to notice them, to take an interest in them, to thank them sincerely for what they’re doing to care for us, and then saying, “Is there any way we could pray for you?” when we have opportunity, to do it right there.

Dannah: So, Nancy, let me ask you this. I’m thinking, “Pray for the receptionist? Pray for . . .” Maybe I’m the only one, but I get scared when I need to pray for someone. 

So, coach us up, because I do think what Nancy is talking about is an important part of our witness. We need believers out there praying for people. How do we overcome the fear, Kathy?

Nancy: And let me say, before Kathy answers that, I don’t want to suggest that we pray with every person we meet or pray for them. We don’t do that. But we try to connect with them and then be sensitive as the Spirit indicates that there’s an open door, an open heart. We’re alert to opportunities to pray with and for people.

But go ahead, Kathy, deal with the fear issue here, because we all face that.

Kathy: I want to say, too, that sometimes we over-spiritualize prayer. All of a sudden, we start speaking in the King James Version, or we think that we have to pontificate Psalm 103 perfectly.

Be practical! People need prayer in a practical sense.

You may think I’m just awful, but if you have a very loud cell phone conversation around me, I’m listening. If you’re going to project that much . . .

Nancy: Sometimes you can’t help listening!

Kathy: I’m praying for you whatever you’re disclosing on the phone. I’m not judging you, because I have no stones to pick up and throw, but I am praying for you. You can look at someone and just pray, “Lord, I pray that the joy of the Lord is her strength, and the strength of the Lord is her joy, amen!” It’s really that simple.

If you see a couple arguing or you see a child acting out . . . We’re radars, we’re women, we are human radars of the emotions of people around us. And the Holy Spirit prompts, so just pray when there is an opportunity. If someone looks at you in a moment of distress, if you have an open-door conversation, you can say, “I prayed for you. Would you be comfortable if I just prayed a couple of sentences (not a dissertation) over you right now? Could I just bless you?” I’ve yet to have anyone go, “Oh no, please don’t!”

Nancy: Yes. I think the Lord is going to use your words to make a lot of us just more sensitive to opportunities today to pray. And this week, we have an opportunity to pray corporately, as the people of God, with the National Day of Prayer here in the United States.

We have people listening to this program from all around the world, but we’re privileged in the United States of America to have a law that indicates that the first Thursday of May is the National Day of Prayer. We may not always have that as a law, but what an opportunity it is for us to enter together into praying for our nation and for our world and for our communities.

Just give us a word about what the National Day of Prayer is and give a little “elevator speech” to encourage all of us to get involved in some way this Thursday in the National Day of Prayer.

Kathy: Absolutely! In 1952—President Truman signed a law, passed by Congress, saying that the President must proclaim a day of prayer for the nation.

And so, as we’ve been talking about prayer, remember. . .when you pray for America, you’re not just praying, “God bless America.” Pray for Americans, pray for your neighbor and the nation. So that’s kind of where we entered the discussion today. 

Nancy: Yes.

Kathy: In 1988, President Reagan amended the law to give us a specific day, because it was so hard to plan, not knowing what day the President might proclaim. So we have this first Thursday in May. 

You can find out on our event finder where there is a local event in your area. It’s not just the national observance, not just our national broadcast, but we have tens of thousands of events across the nation—coast to coast, north, south, east, and west—for people to gather in unified public prayer for America.

We pray biblically. We do not pray politically. We do not pray critically. We want to bless our nation and to bless God who blesses our nation, and so we’re so excited to do this!

Nancy: If you go to ReviveOurHearts.com, we’ve provided a link there to the National Day of Prayer so that you can find out what’s happening in your area and how you can get involved.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and I were talking to Kathy Branzell, President of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. This coming Thursday, May 4, is the National Day of Prayer, and I hope you’ll go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. It’s called “A Lifestyle of Prayer.” That’s where you’ll find the link to more information about the National Day of Prayer. 

Well, I sure hope today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts Weekend has jump-started your heart for prayer! 

Well, Mother’s Day is just around the corner. Next week we’re going to focus on the value of being called “Mommy.” I hope you’ll join us for that!

Thanks for listening today. Pray without ceasing. Just do it when you’re driving . . . cooking . . . crawling into bed. Sometime as simple as “Good night, my Jesus. I love you.” 

I’m Dannah Gresh, inviting you back next time,for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

Revive Our Hearts Weekend calls you to pray at all times, and to find freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

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