Getting results when you pray
God showed me again recently that it takes no longer for me to say a short prayer for someone than it does for me to say I'll pray for you. I don't mean this in a derogatory way. I've been in a pulpit for most of the last 25 years, & I learned to hate the shotgun prayer calls there in the churches. When a prayer for someone becomes important enough to drop what we're doing & pray for that person right then, God hears that prayer. We don't see more miracles in our prayer lives often because we really don't care about the people we're praying for. I once told someone If you don't really care about me I'd rather you didn't pray for me. I know a lot of people took it the wrong way; but God makes it clear that He doesn't hear prayers prayed with the wrong attitude in His word. When a wife prays down God's vengeance on her husband because he's being a total jerk, God doesn't hear that prayer, or that of the husband who does so either. I read the Lving Bible in my personal devotions because it's so clear, although I probably own a dozen other translations as well. It says this keep praying until the answer comes. Hebrews 11:6 states For he that would come to God must believe that He exists, & that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. I'm not belittling anyone's prayer life; but I would like to see their faces when God works a miracle in someone's life because they took the time to say a wholehearted prayer for that person. The most effective prayer in the Bible only contained these few words God be merciful to me, a sinner. It's not how long winded we are, but how wholehearted we are that gets results when we pray.
God's Marine