An Excerpt of “How to Talk with God” by Joyce Meyer
Chapter 1
You Can Enjoy Praying
I think most people would agree that effectiveness is important in prayer. We want our prayers to make a difference in some way. But have you ever considered prayer to be easy and enjoyable? I didn’t see it this way for many years, but I have come to realize that prayer can be quite simple and still be powerful, and that I can enjoy doing it. And so can you.
Everything about our spiritual lives, including prayer, depends on our personal faith in God and our individual relationship with Him. We can enjoy that relationship because Jesus’ death on the cross gives us free, unhindered access to our heavenly Father, and our faith makes it possible for us to have an intimate, dynamic relationship with Him. The more we enjoy our relationship with God, the more we enjoy prayer.
Ephesians 3:12 says that in Christ “we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him [that is, our faith gives us sufficient courage to freely and openly approach God through Christ]” (amp). This scripture is exciting to me because it teaches us that as ordinary human beings we have free access to God at any time through prayer. We can approach Him boldly without reserve, without fear, and with complete freedom. How awesome is that?
The more we enjoy our relationship with God, the more we enjoy prayer.
We don’t need to try to sound super spiritual when we pray. We can be ourselves and be honest with God concerning our thoughts and feelings. The writers of the Psalms were totally honest with God about their feelings. The prayers we read there were not always polished and eloquent. Especially in the Psalms of David, we see that at times he poured out raw emotion due to the agony he felt as a result of his many enemies. Although he was brutally honest with God about how he felt, he always ended by telling God that he trusted Him and would wait on Him for His deliverance.
To keep reading, Download the full chapter below!
Enjoy prayer in a new way as New York Times bestselling author Joyce Meyer explains the keys to unanswered prayers, the hindrances to prayer's effectiveness, and the Bible's role in prayer.
Prayer is an essential part of the Christian life and an amazing privilege, but for many, it’s challenging. There are so many different ideas about what prayer is and how to pray that it can be confusing or even intimidating.In How to Talk With God, Joyce gives simple, practical advice based on scriptures from the Bible that will help you discover the truth about prayer. She addresses common issues, such as how to communicate with God, how to know with confidence that He hears you, and how you can learn to hear His voice. But most importantly, you will learn that prayer is exciting because it’s the key to nurturing your personal relationship with God.
Refresh your daily rhythms and deepen your faith through an effective, powerful life of prayer!
Derived from material previously published in The Power of Simple Prayer.
