Pray Without Ceasing

Prayer points!

1 Thessalonians 5:17 ”Pray without ceasing.”

When we want certain things desperately, why not pray desperately? That’s my question! We wait desperately for a promotion, job, partner and what not; yet, we fail to desperately pray because we are doubtful of the results! Don’t tell me ‘it’s not like that sister.’ Read the scriptures, fill your head with the knowledge of God and how He had listened to the pleas of desperate people, how He had wonderfully delivered people and then you would want to do likewise. Cease from shortcuts. Breaking 100 coconuts, burning 100 candles, writing prayer request 1 lakh times, rolling beads, climbing the steps with an offering on the head, shaving your hair would do no good in Christianity. These are pagan, futile ways! Sincerely cry out to God without giving up!

As husband and wife, we have a habit of writing down our prayer requests (big and small) and praying together and also praying during our personal prayer. We had to arrange a three days training camp in Hyderabad which required lot of arrangements; we were conducting this camp for the first time in Hyderabad , this camp was earlier conducted in Chennai, where we had a big team to help us, now, right from printing pamphlets, we had to do things from scratch. To start with, we prepared a list of prayer points! Are you listening? What do you do when you are arranging for a wedding, first thing people do is prepare a guest list, menu list, jewelry list, dress list, friend list and what not – we have failed to prepare a ‘prayer list’; which is why some things end in fiasco! We have this habit of writing down our needs as prayer points and pray through every day, the answered ones are ticked with red pen and we persistently pray for the rest. During our several years of ministry, we had not knocked the doors of the bank, friends and financiers but we had learnt the art of knocking the doors of heaven through prayer points! Are you listening?

Very meticulously about several months ahead, we started praying for the camp which is called ‘Abide-in-Christ’ camp where we train soldiers for Christ. Right from the pulpit decoration, to the food caterers, boarding, favorable climate – everything was on the list; there was one point squeezed in between and that was ‘cameraman’. We had been praying for several years and God had finally given us a wonderful, professional camera for our ministry but now in the new city we were not able to find an operator, since my husband would be preoccupied with other important things, we needed someone solely for camera operation. Shooting the sermons were very important hence we were praying for that point everyday – did you hear me say ‘everyday?’ Until the very last day we were not able to find one, on the first day of the meeting, a team of youngsters had come from Chennai to attend the meeting and one young man came hesitatingly to my husband while my husband was busy getting the mikes ready for the worship (this was happening on day one before the first worship) and asked, ‘who is operating the camera, I am a professional and I operate the camera in a church in Chennai which is one of the biggest church in Asia with 30,000 members.’ My husband told him, ‘take position, and go ahead with the job!’

Laziness crashes and slumps growth! Relaxing makes little sense as long as more remains to be accomplished! Arise! Roll up your sleeves for some quality prayer and serious talk with God!