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Prayer as a Lifestyle

A holistic view of prayer

When we think of prayer, often we think of those holy moments when we are on our knees in a private place and we are pouring out our souls to God. This is good. That is indeed prayer; and it is prayer that Jesus encouraged. I do not malign it; I emphasize the necessity of it.

However, I think there is another kind of prayer in the Bible; another kind of communion with God. Prayer as a lifestyle.

We hear so much about lifestyles today. There are lifestyle magazines, lifestyle TV channels, and now, even lifestyle coaches! If you're in need of a lifestyle coach, you've probably got bigger issues that the clothes you wear and places you go! But what about prayer as a lifestyle? What if we lived lives characterized by active and continual, verbal communication with the living God? What if in our times of need, our first and most immediate reaction was to pray? What if we depended upon God, from the depths of our hearts, for everything?

I have heard some say that there are things we shouldn't pray about. Often, the reason is that they aren't as important as other things. This seems to my mind to be gross error. Of course there are things that should take a priority in, and shape the content of, our prayer lives, of course there are. But in my own experience, I can draw you a straight line between the moments when I've stopped praying about everything, and stopped depending upon God for everything (life, breath and everything else), and my becoming legalistic and religious, rather than spiritual - brothers and sisters, I would save you from that.

Don't be as I have been; don't think that God isn't concerned about the details of your life, and about the little things. If He delights in you enough to make it so that your very finger prints are entirely your own, and shared by no-one, let no man say that God cares not for the details - the details can often be the moments where the glory of God is revealed. However, it is rightly said that the glory of God is the focus of prayer; the first request of the Lord's Prayer is, "hallowed be your name". In the greek, this is a mild command! We are saying to God, "God, do something that makes people to look at your name as HOLY". But let us not think that God is only glorified in the noisier affairs of the Christian life; God is glorified when you are thankful for the chrysalis you observed on your afternoon walk. God is glorified when you acknowledge that every single breath is a gracious gift from His hand. God is glorified when you admit that the work you do, the food you eat, the steps you take, the things you write, the words you speak, are only in existence because of His infinite grace and kindness toward you; let that stay with you brothers and sisters.

So what do I mean by ‘prayer as a lifestyle'? Is it scriptural? How is it cultivated? Let's hope we can look at these questions a little further together.


John Piper says, "Prayer is not a domestic telephone; it's a war time walkie-talkie". This is the sort of prayer I'm talking about. The sort of prayer that flows from you when you are about to have that conversation that you are just not looking forward to having to hear; when you're burning inside with frustration or anger, and circumstances require patience and measure; when you're facing a temptation that seems too much to bear with the strength currently possessed; that's a prayer. In those moments, when you've no hope in yourself and when outward things tempt you to sin or despair, that's when you've gotta grab the walkie talkie and cry into it for some superior fire power; the enemy is closing in and you're out of munitions, so air-support and back-up is critical. Prayers like this, foxhole prayers, are important; in fact, I believe that without them, we are bound to fall into the sin of self-reliance, which is idolatry and faithlessness. Let me tell you a story.

The King lived in a land that produced much rich threads and cottons. He mused one day that he would set to work his best and most skilful servants to make for him a tapestry of great beauty that would bring glory to him and to his kingdom in the sight of the nations. So, going about the land and selecting his choicest subjects, he brought them to a large chamber in the centre of his palace. And he said to them, "I have set a rope-pull above each of your heads that rings a bell in my private chamber. My father is a master weaver, and he has given to me all his skill and wisdom. So, if you should find that in the course of your preparing the tapestry you get your threads into a tangle, pull the rope, and I will come and help you." So, the servants set to work. Night and day they laboured, working hard with their arms to create for the King a beautiful tapestry, so as to please him. However, many of the servants were arrogant, and would labour long at their work until great and giant tangles would appear in their threads, and they would be forced to call the king to come and help them. However, the arrogant servants noticed in the corner of the chamber a small girl, a servant of quietness and calm, who never seemed to have any big tangles at all. The servants inquired of her, saying, "how is it that you never get into big tangles like we do, and have to call upon the king?" The girl replied to them, "But I do call the king. I call the king every time I get even a little tangle."

Do you see? Our prayer lives are to be like that of the lowly servant girl; she did not wait until things had become too tough for her before she called upon the mercy of the king; she called him for aid night and day at all times, with even the smallest things, and therein avoided larger tangles at all. This kind of dependence should be the substance of our prayer lives; not that prayer is merely that private activity I do when no-one knows or sees but God alone (though it should be this, and that daily), but that it should also be the constant ringing of God's bell, the constant calling to Him for aid in even the smallest of tangles, so that our spirits may learn to depend on Him, and upon no-one else, ourselves included.

This means that our prayers can't always be only foxhole prayers. Why not be as Enoch, rather than Cain? Do not forget that Cain indeed could talk to God; but how much better and safer to be like Enoch and walk with God? Because God has removed the barrier of Sin to our communion with Him, we can walk like this renewed fellowship again. Though God's voice does not sound from the heavens as it did in days gone by, we have the scripture itself, the word of God, the written text of God, the BIBLE - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Our prayers are to be constant. They are to assault the gates of Heaven day and night, asking God for His blessing. What stops you from quietly praying for someone you pass on the street? What keeps you from whispering in your heart to God to bless the life of a believer you are speaking with? What hinders you from sending another arrow to assail the walls of Zion that the King may come out to join the fray? Brothers and Sisters, be not people who pray; be people of prayer. Don't let prayer be an activity in your week, or your day; let prayer be the song of your soul, the flavour of your spirit, the content of your mind and heart.

Is this scriptural? Let's have a look.

Nehemiah 2:1-5

1In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence. 2And the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, seeing you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart." Then I was very much afraid. 3I said to the king, "Let the king live forever! Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' graves, lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?" 4Then the king said to me, "What are you requesting?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5And I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favour in your sight, that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' graves, that I may rebuild it."

Nehemiah is a good example of the bullet-prayer; an immediate need, requiring immediate grace from God. Nehemiah isn't arrogant enough to think himself able to deal with the situation alone, or without God's gracious provision and help; in fact, writing in reflection as he is, Nehemiah comments that very fact the King knows of his sadness regarding the state of the land of his fathers' is the providence of God, for he writes, "Now I had not been sad in his presence" (v1). This must be a bullet prayer; there's no time for Nehemiah to go elsewhere to seek the Lord, nor does he want to seem rude before the King, so this prayer is a prayer sent up immediately and secretly from a heart that sees and knows its need of God.

1 Samuel 1:9-18

9After they had eaten and drunk in Shiloh, Hannah rose. Now Eli the priest was sitting on the seat beside the doorpost of the temple of the LORD. 10She was deeply distressed and prayed to the LORD and wept bitterly. 11And she vowed a vow and said, "O LORD of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life and no razor shall touch his head."
12As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. 13Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. 14And Eli said to her, "How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you." 15But Hannah answered, "No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD. 16Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation." 17Then Eli answered, "Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him." 18And she said, "Let your servant find favour in your eyes." Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

Hannah teaches us good things about prayer. She goes the temple as often as she can; living the days when access to the presence of God was most associated with the temple of the Lord.

However, observe verse 13. Hannah is speaking in her heart. Don't miss my point; I don't mean to say that the style in which we pray makes the prayer more or less efficacious. What I mean to say that these are not the words of Hannah's religious mentality, nor are they loose phrases offered to God as if He deserved only our minimum effort, these are the words of her heart; these are the things that are really going on with her. She doesn't try to hide from God; she is communing, within herself, with God. Only He can hear her; and only He needs to. She has not approached the priest, nor has she gone anywhere else, but to God only. Let us follow her example in this manner; let us go straight to God, and come boldly to the throne of Grace.

Verse 15. Hannah isn't pouring out her religiousness; she pours out her soul. She comes before God in humility and honesty and she pours out exactly what's going on. Don't be afraid to come to God honestly; don't approach Him thinking there are things about you He doesn't get or can't comprehend, and so blaspheme His glory. God knows more about you and about your troubles than you do. But let this knowledge set you free to come into His presence and pour out your soul, in honesty, and in full, not pieces.

Verse 16 is a clincher. Hannah is speaking out of the hardships and the struggles, and the great anxieties and the vexations. Listen, God is NOT surprised at your anxiety. He understands fully well your feeble state, and how prone you are to forget His providence. Come to Him and confess it, tell Him of it, speak of it without ceasing, that you may be reminded by His Spirit in yours, that He is in control, and that there is no need for your vexations. God was faithful, and answered Hannah's honest prayer. Learn that you can ask God questions. Ask Him things like, "God, why on earth are you doing this in my life?" He won't always tell you; but sometimes, I have found He does. Through a scripture or through the wise words of a friend, or through that still small voice that one must be careful to test by scripture; He is capable and able to communicating with you; He is not dead. Jesus lives.

Honestly, I held back at this point from writing more. I could've gone on to write about Colossians 4:2, Ephesians 6:18, Romans 12:12, Luke 18:1, 1 Thess. 5:17, Ps. 25:5-8, Ps. 65:1-2, Ps. 46:1-2, Ps. 27:4 and countless other passages teaching us about the nature of prayer, and its flowing out from a life and heart of dependence upon God. Perhaps make those verses referenced above places you stop at in the scripture this coming week, to ponder a little more on the nature and necessity of heartfelt, God-centred, Christ-exalted, missions-driven, war-time prayer. Just a possibility.

In closing application, my exhortation to you is this; live not in a way that makes prayer the last place you turn when your own human strength has failed; make prayer the connection to your firmest foundation, and to the God who cannot fail. Do not treat prayer mystically; God is not a cosmic blessing dispenser that you pull the lever of to give you what you want; make prayer about loving God, leaning on God, and trusting Him, even when things are hard. Especially in trial, turn nowhere but to the Living God, and He will be with you, for He certainly hears the prayers of those who make them in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.


7 ways to lean on God through prayer

1. Make prayer the first activity of everyday; before the eating of food and the washing of hair and the brushing of teeth, be in prayer with God, establishing that the day ahead is His, not yours. Do this even if you linger for only a few minutes.