Prayer has always been a big part of my life as a Christian but lately my desire for connection with God through prayer has gone through the roof.  During this season of deeper prayer awareness, I’ve learned three critical things that I feel like I’m supposed to share with you guys.

1.  I must relentlessly and without mercy beat back all distractions.

It seems that no matter how I tackle prayer, distractions pour in from every conceivable angle when I get serious about it.

It’s easy to pray lightly and without much passion but the moment that I determine that I’m going to seriously dig in distractions start flooding in.  I find that I have to discipline myself (and my thoughts) in an almost militant way to really push through.

It feels like a literal battle and I have to very intentional about it or I will most certainly lose the fight.

2.  I must be willing to pray whenever and however God directs.

I find that God’s timing is not my timing and that if I relegate prayer to certain time slots of the day that I miss the most powerful moments of prayer.  In essence, I have to decide to allow God to toss my schedule aside whenever He sees fit.

I’ve also got to allow Him to tell me what the prayer itself should look like.  I find that I limit Him, His power and my sense of His presence when I try to make Him jump through the hoops of what I feel prayer should look like or feel like.

3.  I must allow God to pray through me for others.

I have found the power of prayer and my sense of closeness to the Lord grows exponentially as I allow Him to focus my prayers on the needs of others.  I must consciously yield my mind and spirit to whatever He wants to bring to my attention at that moment and focus on it.

I certainly pray for my own needs, my family and my church but as I move beyond just what’s on my own personal radar and allow Him to bring other things to mind I sense a surge of the Holy Spirit that I find hard to fully describe here.

Ironically, it’s when I’m most engaged in prayer for others that God will often direct me back to pray for my own needs but this time with added power.

I hope these thoughts don’t come across as strange.  It’s just stuff I’m learning on my journey.  I pray that it helps you to push deeper in prayer.