The Impact of Prayer

On January 1, I read and studied about the story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. I knew that it was time for me to wrestle with God. And not in a bad way, not in a "I'm shaking my fist at God and blaming Him for all my problems" type of way, but in a way that digs in to the unmet desires of my heart, the season(s) of life I'm in, the circumstances I'm in, where my heart is at. That meant carving out significant amounts of time from what I usually do, cutting back on things that were wasteful, etc.

So it's been two months. And two months sounds so short! But it's felt so long. I've seen God's hand move in cool ways though. 

Tonight I got my book out that I'm currently reading, "The Power of Persistence" talking about prayer, and my notebook and pen. I sat down on my bed, but before I could even settle in, I heard God say, "Go get Streams in the Desert." (A devotional book I have.) Pause. Let me try to explain what I mean when I say I heard God say something like that. It was a random thought, completely unrelated to what I was about to do, and it was something that was like a command to do something that didn't really make any sense. HA. Just a prompting that was not of my own thoughts. And then it followed up with something that made sense, so I knew it was from the Lord. 

The reason it was random was because I got this devotional, "Streams in the Desert" in 2006. One friend had told me about it and another friend got it for me for Christmas. I loved that book/devotional, but I haven't touched it in years. It's marked up heavily with underlines, circles, stars, brackets around paragraphs or entire pages, and lots of pages folded down on the corners. But again, I haven't touched it in years. So I went and got it off my bookshelf and opened up to today. The opening verse was, "So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. Genesis 32:24" Ah, see there what God did? So let me just write some of the things from it that were good. 

"Left alone! What different emotions these words bring to mind for each of us! To some they mean loneliness and grief, but to others they may mean rest and quiet. Being left alone with Him though is a taste of heaven! 

"The greatest miracles of Elijah and Elisha took place when they were alone with God. Jacob was alone with God when he wrestled with Him (Gen. 32). Gideon and Jephthah were by themselves when commissioned to save Israel (Judg. 6:11, 11:29). Moses was by himself at the burning bush (Ex. 3:1-5). No one was with Peter on the housetop when he was instructed to go to the Gentiles (Acts 10:9-28). 

"Earnestly desire to get alone with God. If we neglect to do so, we not only rob ourselves of a blessing but rob others as well since we will have no blessing to pass on to them. It may mean that we do less outward, visible work, but the work we do will have more depth and power. The impact of being alone with God in prayer cannot be overemphasized."