Prayer is an underutilized path to strength and a healthy life.  It doesn’t take long on this adventure of following Christ before you make life-long friends.  Friends who will pour out their hearts to you and who are there for you as you share each other’s burdens.  Where are you going to find those kinds of friends?   All you need to do is join a small group, or what we call, Tiny Little Church (TLC) groups.  Because, when you march on the battlefield for the ideals of heaven, you will soon make friends with people who would give their lives for you. 

With those friends, soon the conversation will come up about prayer.  It is like two tennis players giving one another tips.  Or two golf players who are sharing their journey in the great game of golf.  (My marriage advice, however, is don’t coach your spouse in golf. -- But that is off the subject.)  Prayer is the topic that good Christian friends always keep coming back to when it comes to following Christ. Discussions like, “What has God been teaching you about prayer?”  “What exciting things are you seeing in your prayer life?”  Or maybe even, “How has prayer been a struggle for you lately?”  

The other day I was spending some time with a good friend and he handed me the book “The Battle Plan for Prayer” by Stephen & Alex Kendrick.  He was having everyone at his company (where he is a Chief Financial Officer) read the book together.  There is a lot of good information out there on the topic of prayer. In this book, the author compares prayer to WWI.  In that war millions of people lost their lives in that bogged-down, bloody, trench warfare.  It was a hopeless situation until the British developed the tank.  That was the beginning of the end of stalemate warfare that came from digging trenches.  The author uses the analogy that prayer breaks through the stalemate for the believer by giving them the protection of a tank.  

We are studying together SOAR, RUN, WALK and the prayers of Jesus.  This weekend I will be speaking on the metaphor Jesus uses of the widow and the wicked judge. In this passage, Jesus is teaching us a startling truth about prayer.  It appears to be a seemingly stark contradiction of what we would intuitively believe the Bible teaches about prayer and what we know about God.  But many times, the greatest truths are hidden in the most baffling contradictions. Luke 18:1-8 is kind of like the old song: “My boyfriend’s back and you’re gonna be in trouble,” or the little kid who says to the bully, “My big brother is going to be here in just a minute.”  I think when you discover the meaning of this important teaching of Jesus you are going to find new wings and deeper roots in your prayer life.  You find yourself becoming one of those who pray prayers that change the world. Please join us for inspirational worship this weekend.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White