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

The child learns to speak because his father speaks to him…So we learn to speak to God because God has spoken to us. By means of the speech of his Father in heaven his children learn to speak to him. Repeating God’s words after him, we begin to pray to him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Listen

The army at the gates was the epitome of barbaric cruelty. It was only a matter of time before Jerusalem fell. The Rabshakeh (a title for the leader of the Assyrian army…just saying it is kind of creepy!) sent a letter to King Hezekiah – who was in Jerusalem – mocking his trust in God and bragging of Assyria’s exploits. Hezekiah did not possess an army that could save Jerusalem. All he could do was pray, and he did…

2 Kings 19:15–19

¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord and said: “O Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, you are the God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ Incline your ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. ¹⁷ Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands ¹⁸ and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they were destroyed. ¹⁹ So now, O Lord our God, save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, O Lord, are God alone.”

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 resonate 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, “though Hezekiah was a powerful king, there is always another king more powerful.” The Spirit can show us that deep within our own hearts we long for a king who is the ultimate, almighty king, whom no other king can stand before.)
4. What are some elements of Hezekiah’s prayer for deliverance that can guide you when defeat is knocking at the door?”

Pray

Using Hezekiah’s prayer as your template and guide, make it your own today…remember, using God’s words is how we learn to speak to him.