Dear God,
I grant You my permission to do that which Your Authority allows. You have shifted the tectonic plates of my life. The cataclysmic quakes reverberate yet today. Thank You.
Thank You for teaching me faith in the midst of uncertainty. You have taught me much about praying in faith, yet I have so much to learn. I feel as if I have only completed Kindergarten in God's School of Faith! Advance my studies. Strengthen my resolve. Steady my emotions. Steel my will.
Wesley Duewel (Mighty Prevailing Prayer,1990) identifies 7 steps to greater faith.
- Recognize your own helplessness and need.
- Feed your soul on the Word of God.
- Spend adequate time in prayer.
- Read accounts of how God has answered prayer.
- Obey God in everything.
- Begin to trust God for specific answers.
- Begin praising God.
Oh, Lord, increase my faith! I testify to obedience in each of these areas; however, I must repeat them over and over again if I am to become the man of faith that You are calling me to be. Teach me to pray with a confident and believing faith.
Duewel describes a prayer of faith as prayer that is:
- Totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit.
- Totally committed to seeing God's answer realized.
- Willing to believe and prevail for God's answer in a situation that is utterly impossible.
- Believes regardless of feelings or emotions.
- Convinced that it is in accord with God's highest will.
- So sure of God's will that it will not accept denial of the answer.
- Eager to obey God in any way He leads so as to help hasten the answer.
- May include prayer warfare in resisting and routing Satan.
- Willing to pray through every detail of the answer or victory.
"So many people, as it has been said, pray really because they do not with to miss a chance. They do not really believe in prayer; they have only the feeling that something might just possibly happen, and they do not wish to miss a chance" (William Barclay in The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 136). You are not my last resort, but sometimes I fail to come to You as quickly as I should. I default to worry for a brief season, then arrested by Your Holy Spirit, I come.
You know the desperate cries of the needy, clamoring for Your help. You heard the cry of the Canaanite woman pleading for her daughter's healing. She brought You a "gallant and audacious love, a faith which grew until it worshipped at the feet of the divine, an indomitable hope, a cheerfulness which would not be dismayed. That is the faith which cannot help finding an answer to its prayers" (William Barclay in The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 137). You heard the cry of the lepers, the blind, the lame, the epilectic, the sick, the dying, the bereaved. You listened. You responded.
Now, hear me. Hear my prayer. Receive my feeble faith. Answer. Then embolden me to ask for more.
In the Name of the Faithful One, I believe You.
Amen.
You know the desperate cries of the needy, clamoring for Your help. You heard the cry of the Canaanite woman pleading for her daughter's healing. She brought You a "gallant and audacious love, a faith which grew until it worshipped at the feet of the divine, an indomitable hope, a cheerfulness which would not be dismayed. That is the faith which cannot help finding an answer to its prayers" (William Barclay in The Gospel According to Matthew, p. 137). You heard the cry of the lepers, the blind, the lame, the epilectic, the sick, the dying, the bereaved. You listened. You responded.
Now, hear me. Hear my prayer. Receive my feeble faith. Answer. Then embolden me to ask for more.
In the Name of the Faithful One, I believe You.
Amen.
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