Isaiah 56:7 – My house shall be called a house of prayer

As Christians, we have been taught that we should pray regularly. Yet have we paused to ask ourselves why we ought to pray?

The obvious answer is that God desires His people to pray. He has ordained prayer to be the means by which His will is being carried out. God rarely acts outside the realm of the prayers of His people though He is free too. It is not so much that “prayer moves the hand of God” but that He chooses to answer the prayers that we make. God causes us to ask that which pleases Him. He places in our hearts the burden for those things that He has ordained to happen. Therefore our act of praying becomes part and parcel of the fulfilment of His will.

“... in the presence of God”

Prayer is also more than asking and petitioning things from God. Prayer, in a very real sense, is coming into His presence.

In 1 Kings 17:1, Elijah said to King Ahab, “As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, there shall be no dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” We see that there was a drought over the land for the next three and a half years. In James 5:17, the apostle James referred to this as Elijah’s prayer. He said that Elijah prayed and the heavens were closed and he prayed again and there was rain. Elijah’s prayer was just a short declaration yet it was very effective. James went on to say that the effective prayer of a righteous man has great effects. And he adds that Elijah was a man of the same nature with us. In other words, we too can have effective prayers like Elijah if we learn to “stand in the presence of God”.

Prayer to Elijah was a natural thing. He prayed so often that he was always in the presence of God.

Prayer becomes a joy when we begin to linger in the presence of the Lord. The psalmist says, “In thy presence is fullness of joy and in thy right hand are pleasures for ever more.” (Psalm 16:11).

Moses, David, Elijah and other great men of God, all know how to spend time in God’s presence. David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, would compose songs and sing them to the Lord accompanied by musical instruments. In Psalm 27:4 David said, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.”

Moses would spend long hours and days with the Lord, meeting God face to face. He would return to the Israelite camp with his face shining with the Glory of God. Elijah who stands in the presence of the Lord could command the heavens to be closed or open.

We, too, should learn to spend time in the presence of God. We should not think of prayer as bringing to God a few items of requests and then rush off to our busy schedule. Let us take time to spend in His presence. Then our prayers will be as powerful and effective as Elijah’s.