An Hour in Prayer?

Thought I would share how I spent an hour in prayer with the Lord this morning. Jesus asked the disciples if they would spend one hour in prayer with him. This is the only time frame Jesus ever mentions about our length of prayer. I think we need to be careful in watching the clock while we pray. Kind of like putting my time stamp on my quota of prayer. Our prayer life needs to be on a continual basis. Not just from 5:30 a.m. to 6:30 a.m. How do I spend an hour in prayer?

1. Follow a guideline
There are many models to follow to serve as guidelines in praying. Jesus gave us a guideline in praying with the Lord's prayer. There is the A.C.T.S. prayer model. Dick Eastman wrote a book called "The Hour that Changed the World" which has been a good help. The old adage is true if you fail to plan you plan to fail.
My guideline this morning went as...

• Worship - 25 minutes I play the acoustic guitar and sing worship songs for about 20-30 minutes. David said, "I will awaken my spirit with the lute and harp."
• Confession - 5 minutes - One of the songs that I was singing was about God's grace. I asked the Lord to deal with the sins in my life and receive His grace.
• Meditation on the Word - 10 minutes - I read Psalms 116 the day before and it dealt with being thankful to God because He saved us from nearly dieing. I just prayed the outline I had established the day before.
• Praying in unknown language - 15 minutes - I'm Pentecostal and believe the Lord has given us a prayer language to help us pray effectively. Romans 8:26-27 26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. So I prayed in the language the Lord has given me. When I was baptized in the Holy Spirit a minister challenged me to pray in the Holy Spirit everyday.

2. Set a time
Set a time and be fairly consistent to it. I heard of a story of a pastor who prayed with an elderly missionary one morning during his daily prayer time. The only words the missionary said was, "Jesus" and the pastor friend said the presence of the Lord came into the room. The pastor attributed the presence of God being strong because the missionary had continually meet with Jesus in prayer at that time. I try to get up in the morning time to pray before the day starts. It doesn't always work that way. This morning I didn't want to get up, but thanks to my wife for getting up to exercise, she inspired me to get out of bed. The key to getting out of bed in the morning is going to bed early the night before. :) Jesus got up early before the day even started to spend time with the father. I don't believe this was a one time experience, but something He did on a continual basis.

3. Start small
If you can't spend an hour in prayer start with 15 minutes. I started doing my devotions when I was in High School with the devotional book called "Take Five." It lasted about five minutes. Now when I pray and read the Word I usually spend one to two hours of prayer and Bible reading. How? I've worked my way from "Taking Five." We need to start small and continually work on it.

The disciples fell asleep when Jesus asked them to pray. Jesus was disappointed that they were not praying with them. He wanted them to pray so that that they could be prepared for the temptations they would be facing. A lack of prayer in their life caused them to fall into temptation. We can't miss prayer in our life it will cause us to be spiritually weak. I hope your spending time with the Father in prayer. One hour is a good goal to set.