"Pray Hard" Time

I received an encouraging email from a brother who suggested that I was entering a "pray hard" time - meaning, I was entering a period of time that God intended for me to cry out to Him in fervent prayer. I began thinking about this.

How do I pray hard? Lord, I don't know what praying hard looks like! I don't even really know what praying hard means! I know praying hard does not mean that some how you just turn up the volume or the frequency in prayer and God answers..."lord, please allow this to happen. Lord, please allow this to happen. Lord, please, allow this to happen. LORD, PLEASE ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN!!!" I don't think that's how it works.

Nor do I think increasing the quantity of time in prayer will guarantee God's answer. Praying for 3 hours will make no more difference than if I had just prayed 10 minutes. I don't think becoming more passionate will change anything either. Will being prostrate on the ground as I pray fervently make my prayer somehow more effective? I don't think so.

So, Lord, how do I pray hard? I acknowledge that only you can accomplish this feat. I care deeply about this dilemma and I know that you care, so will you please allow this to occur? I am hopeless in and of myself...

It was as I was telling Him all these things that He opened my mind to see a reality about prayer that I had never considered. With praying hard, the act of prayer and its methodology, though important, is just one tiny facet of praying and is not most important. What is most important in praying hard is the posture of my soul in the presence of Almighty God! As I was talking to the Lord about my confusion and powerlessness in knowing how to pray hard, I realized that I wasn't trying to "pray hard and in the correct way,
" but that the posture of my soul was in a state where I fully embraced the futility of my own efforts and the truth that only divine intervention from my heavenly Father could accomplish anything for which I hoped.

Lord, forgive me for turning prayer into an activity based on my own efforts. Even prayer is only accomplished by Your grace. Help the posture of my soul to lay prostrate before you, acknowledging my powerlessness and the vanity of my own life and efforts, and that I would cry out to You alone for salvation.