Introduction

We are so glad you are joining us for these daily prayer posts. Over the next four weeks we are going to listen to the prayers of the Bible, and the saints of God. Their prayers are going to teach us how to pray.

Each devotion will take five to seven minutes of your time.

1. We will look at an insight from those who know something important about prayer.
2. We will listen to the prayers of people in the Bible—people just like us. And to people who gained a deep measure of spiritual intimacy with God because they prayed.
3. We will reflect, asking the same four questions each day that invites us to look and listen with intent.
4. And we will pray, for it is in praying that we learn to pray. And it is in praying that the Spirit changes our hearts.

May we encourage you to grab a notebook, a journal, something to write on as you do each prayer guide. Yes, it will add a few minutes to the time it takes to do the devotion, and it will also deepen your experience and shape your walk with God for years to come.

Look

“Biblical prayer is impertinent, persistent, shameless, indecorous. It is more like haggling in an outdoor bazaar than the polite monologues of the church.”

Walter Wink, NT Scholar 1935-2012

Listen

God delivered His people from bondage in Egypt. They would be there now if God had not done what they could never do. God has protected and provided for them on a journey through the desert. And now, rather than trusting God to enter the land He has Promised to give them – which means removing the pagan people of that land – they rebel and cry out in so many words, “we should have just stayed in Egypt!” God is prepared to destroy them, but Moses prays…

Numbers 14:13–19

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, “Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for you brought up this people in your might from among them, ¹⁴ and they will tell the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that you, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For you, O Lord, are seen face to face, and your cloud stands over them and you go before them, in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. ¹⁵ Now if you kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard your fame will say, ¹⁶ ‘It is because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land that he swore to give to them that he has killed them in the wilderness.’ ¹⁷ And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ¹⁸ ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ ¹⁹ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now.”

Reflect

1. Having read the Word, sit silently for a minute and give God’s Word a moment to settle within you.
2. Re-read the verses slowly and write down some thoughts that resonates with you.
3. Ask the Spirit to help you see the deeper longings, desires or motives in your heart that those thoughts are pointing to. (for example: you may write down, “God is filled with unfailing love.” The Spirit can help you recognize that all of us want unfailing love, but no human can provide it, not even parents, really. Only God.)
4. What are some elements in this brutally honest plea from the heart of Moses that help you to know what to pray and how to pray when you see plans and hopes coming unraveled?

Pray

Using Moses pleas for God to act according to His character as your template and guide, make it your own today.