Dear Friends:

I have discovered what I think to be one of the most important secrets to praying effectively. And, the discovery was made, not in the Bible, but in the writings of an old English poet. As I pondered his words, they become more and more profound to me and drove me to the Bible to see what it says on the subject. There I found that the poet was right. The Bible is in agreement with his secret to good praying.

Are you interested in praying prayers that God will answer? Do you want to learn how better to communicate to God through prayer? Are you curious to know what the old poet’s secret is? Then, read on.

Step One

Effective praying starts with effective loving. We have just come through February, the month of the year when we focus on love, romance, red hearts, and all of that. And for all of us, there are people we love and we are so grateful to have them in our lives. But, we all also rub shoulders with people who aren’t all that lovable. True tests of love are not to see if we can love people we are naturally drawn to, but whether can love those who are on our unlovable list. That makes sense to us, but knowing we should love them and actually being able to love them are two different things.

How can we learn to love those who are not so lovable? (We’ll get to the poet in a minute, but this is basic to his secret). That answer is pretty straightforward in the Bible. We need to be loved ourselves. And the love that Jesus offers is accessed only through forgiveness. Once we are forgiven and realize how much that forgiveness cost Jesus and how much He must love us in order to do what He had to do to be able to offer us that forgiveness, we feel totally, 100% loved – even on our worst days!

And when we know that kind of love and feel it in the innermost parts of our selves, we are able to love others. Jesus said it this way about the sinful woman who anointed his feel with oil and washed them with her tears, “. . . her sins, which were many, are forgiven, thus she loved much;” (Luke 7:47 New English Translation).

Seems like a strange way to learn to love, doesn’t it, when the first step is realizing how desperate we are? But the more we are in touch with our unfixable sinfulness, the greater will be our acknowledgement of need. Then we will be overwhelmingly grateful for the love God has shown to us.

John reiterates the idea in I John 4 when he tells that God’s great love was shown to us by sending His Son to pay the price for our sins and make a way for us to receive forgiveness. Then, he goes on to say, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (v. 11). Then, just to make sure we understand the order of things, he reminds us in verse 19, “We love because he first loved us.” When we experience God’s love, we are able to love others. We really can’t do it on our own. We have to be loved first! When we know, really know, we are loved even though we are unlovable, we are then equipped to show the same kind of love to other unlovable people in our lives.

Step Two

So, what does that have to do with prayer? Well, it leads us to the second step of effective praying. When we become better lovers, loving more and more people and loving them more deeply, we are going to find the need to pray more often. It has been my own experience, at least, that if we love a lot, we pray a lot.

What else are we to do with all these people we care about? I guess we could take on the responsibility of making them happy or obedient or spiritual or financially secure or healthy. Some of us have tried that and have found it doesn’t work too well. We run out of energy or emotion or resources long before the problems can be solved. The other option? The better option? We can pray.

The conclusion: Great lovers become frequent prayers. When we love and care for and empathize with those around us, we know we must take them and their needs to the Father, the only One who has the power to make a difference that really matters in their lives.

Step Three (and here’s the secret)

But frequency alone will not make for the kind of effectiveness in praying that we want. It takes one more thing: Passion. And this is the bit of theology taken from late 18 th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge who said “He prayeth best who loveth best . . .”* And that, I believe, is the bottom line secret to effective praying. The more people we love, the more often we pray - and the more deeply we love, the more earnestly we pray.

When we pray often and pray with urgency and passion, God answers. How do I know? First, Jesus told us “Everyone who asks and keeps on asking receives; and he who seeks and keeps on seeking finds; and to him who knocks and keeps on knocking, the door shall be opened.”(Luke 11:10 Amplified Bible).

And James expands on the thought by saying, “The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available (dynamic in its working.) (James 5:16b, Amplified Bible).

How do we understand this? First, a righteous person has to be praying – that is, one who has been forgiven. We have already talked about forgiveness as a first step. Then James talks about our next two steps: Both earnestness and frequency. When we pray often and pray as if we really care that God hears us, James assures us that the power of Heaven available to us here on earth.

“He prayeth best who loveth best. . .” I think Coleridge had it right. Let’s receive God’s love and forgiveness so we can be forgiven lovers - praying always and praying with passion so our prayers for this world and this people we love will be answered.

Blessings on your and your prayers today!

Bev

* from “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

P.S. If you know of others who would enjoy receiving this newsletter each month, please encourage them to visit my website (www.beverlyvankampen.com), click on the newsletter icon, and enter their e-mail address. I would love to add them to our circle of friends.