Christians everywhere want to know the answer to those questions. They want to know just what words to say in prayer. They want to know just how to say them so that God will move and change their lives, their loved ones, and their world. But the fact is, prayer isn't just composed of the words we say. If words were all that mattered in prayer, we could record scripturally accurate prayers into a tape recorder and then, whenever we needed to pray them, we could just push the button and play the tape of those prayers. You know as well as I do that words coming out of a tape player are not going to move God.
No, real prayer has to come from within a man or woman. It must be an expression of a person's heart. And the more fervent the heart, the more effective the prayer will be. James 5:16 says it this way, "The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available; dynamic in its working." This is not talking about casually asking God for something. It's not talking about the light kind of request you might make when you ask Him for a parking place at the grocery store. That verse is talking about the kind of request you make when you need something big from God, when you need Him to move in a powerful way on your behalf.
Prayer that pulls down that kind of power has to be "hot" prayer. It must be fervent prayer that is ladened with tremendous desire. That kind of prayer doesn't just come out of your mouth, it comes from the inmost part of you. Your whole being gets involved in it. You have such an intense inner hunger for something from God that you feel as though you cannot live without it. Your whole spirit, soul, and body cry out to God in faith and say, "Lord, I must have this!" When that kind of cry goes up to God, you know it will be answered because Jesus said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matt. 5:5).
Many of us have prayed, word-for-word, the prayer recorded in Acts 4 asking God to stretch forth His "hand to heal that signs and wonders may be done by the name of Jesus" (Verse 30). But so far, we haven't seen God move the way He did then when so many signs and wonders were worked by the hands of the apostles that people dragged the sick into the streets so Peter's shadow would touch them. Why is that? I believe it's because of our lack of spiritual hunger.
God is faithful to fill the hungry heart and I believe our experience reflects the degree of hunger that we've had. We've asked God for big things at times, but we didn't have the capacity to receive them because we weren't really that hungry. We'd come into a worship service and say, "God we want all You have to give us." But after five minutes in the presence of God, we'd be satisfied and we'd start thinking about where we were going to eat after the service.
There are parts of God that He isn't just going to hand out to us because we have a casual interest. He's not going to reveal deep things to us when our desire for Him is lumped in with our desire for everything else. When we can say, "I want a hot dog. I want my children to go to college. I want to see the glory of God." No, He's reserving His most precious things for those who crave Him above everything else, for those who are deeply, desperately hungry for Him.
If you're not that hungry, don't despair. The wonderful thing about spiritual hunger is that it can be increased. How? First of all, by asking. As Brother John G. Lake said, "Brethren, pray to get hungry!" That's what I'm doing these days. I'm praying, "God, do this in me. Deepen my desire. Make me desperately hungry and thirsty for You."
I can ask that in faith because I know God doesn't just tease us. He's not the kind of God who would show us something in Him and then refuse to give it to us. No, He is a God of fulfillment. He shows us things because He wants us to have them.
In addition to asking, I've also been studying people who were so hungry for God that they were able to receive extraordinary things from Him. I've examined some of the elements in their life so I can learn from them. One of the elements I've found is fasting. If you'll look through the Bible, you'll find that people who became desperate for a move of God would fast because their heart hunger would exceed their hunger for food. In Acts 13, we see the leadership in the church at Antioch fasting and ministering to the Lord. And from that time of worship and fasting, came a move of the Holy Ghost that launched the greatest apostolic team this earth has ever seen.
Now, I'm not promoting fasting just as an activity. It's not effective when we do it like a religious formula thinking that if we copy someone else who fasted, we'll get the same results. I'm saying we should search for the kind of hunger that will make us want to fast, so that fasting will be an expression of our heartfelt desire for more of God.
Another element I've found in the lives of many people who had a deep hunger for God was the element of crisis. I know that's not very encouraging and I'm certainly not saying we should go looking for crises, but we can learn something from those who have experienced them. In Acts 12, for example, we see the early Church in crisis. Herod began to kill off their leadership. He murdered James the brother of John with a sword and then he locked up Peter and made plans to kill him, too.
The Church got desperate. They couldn't stand to lose Peter! That was more than they could bear. So "fervent prayer for him was persistently made to God by the church." (Verse 5) They laid hold of God and absolutely refused to let go until they got their answer. As a result, an angel was sent to release Peter from prison and a short time later, an angel of God smote Herod and he died; his killing spree ended once and for all.
Actually, it's not crisis that brings that kind of intensity. It's what we choose to do in that crisis. When we choose to turn completely toward God as our only help, when we look away from all else to Him alone, we tap into His power. And we can do that even when there is no crisis!
Daniel proved that. He was just reading the book of Jeremiah one day and he saw in there that the time had come for the Jews to be delivered out of Babylon. He saw that according to the Word of God, the time had come for them to go home. So what did he do? He told us in Daniel 9:3. "I set my face to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes; and I prayed to the Lord my God."
Daniel was not in a crisis. On the contrary, he was a counselor to the king of Babylon. No doubt, he ate well and dressed well. He lived a prosperous and comfortable life. But once he saw what God had promised, he refused to be satisfied with anything less. So he set himself to seek the face of God.
We can set ourselves to seek God. We may not be as hungry as we need to be, but we can take what hunger we have and seek God with it. We can pray and say, "God show me things about You. Show me things in Your Word. I'm not satisfied with knowing just Your blessings. I want to know You!"
I know from experience that when we start praying that way, the Holy Ghost will take hold with us. He will show us some things that will start making us hungrier for God. He will stir our hearts until we can pray those earnest, heartfelt prayers that make much power available, dynamic in its working. He will cultivate our desire for Him until it overshadows every other desire in our lives. He will work with us until we can pray not just with our lips but with every fiber of our being, until our hearts cry out like David's did and we can say: "I will seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is. So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory. My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You" (Ps. 63:1-2,8).
When we begin to pray like that, we will see God move like He did in the book of Acts. We will see miracles, signs, and wonders. We will experience God as never before. When we pray like that, heaven will come down in answer to our prayers and the whole earth will be filled with God's glory. Brethren, pray to be hungry!
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A teacher and an author, Lynne publishes a newsletter called Prayer Notes, has written numerous books, and currently serves as the national prayer director for Daughters for Zion. Her passion for inspiring and leading others into the life of Spirit-led prayer continues to take her around the world to minister to believers whose heart cry, like hers, is “Lord, teach me to pray!”
