Your Best Year Yet // The Cycle of Prayer for Normal People | Jordan Smucker | 01.24.21

In one of his more famous quotes, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” Prayer is an essential part of our faith in Jesus. We learn through the teachings of Jesus that we pray to God, in the name of Jesus. It is because of what Jesus has done on your behalf that you have access to God, as your father. To say that’s incredible is a gross understatement and yet, prayer is still a bit of a mystery to us. The Bible called people to such disciplines as fasting, prayer, worship, celebration, and study; but gave almost no instruction about how to do them. Those disciplines were practiced and were such a part of the general culture that the “how to” was common knowledge. It is not common anymore. However, Jesus gave us a model prayer that today we refer to as, The Lord’s Prayer, and in it we find what Pastor Jordan refers to as, “The Cycle of Prayer” where we begin to learn how to pray effectively and learn that prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance but rather laying hold of His willingness.

“Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act...”
-Psalms 37:7 (NLT)-