David Diga Hernandez - 3 Things I've Learned About Prayer

To start, I want you to go on public record. If you’re ready to make a bigger commitment to prayer than ever before, then I want you to comment these two simple words: prayer first. Write those two words in the comment section right now if you want to make prayer a bigger part of your life than ever before.

Key number one to effective prayer: focus. One of the biggest reasons why believers have trouble establishing a prayer life or going deeper in prayer is because of distraction. Have you ever noticed that when you go to pray, suddenly your mind is bombarded with all of the cares and concerns of this world? You start thinking of your responsibilities, your worries, your to-do list, your relationships. All of a sudden, these thoughts seem to come when you pray. And again, because of this, many believers have trouble establishing that consistency or that depth in their prayer life. If prayer is to be effective, it must be focused. The wandering mind keeps the believer bound to the natural realm. The excess of distracting thoughts is too heavy to allow for heavenly ascension. So how do you focus? How do you get your mind to be disciplined when you pray?

I’m gonna give you three keys to focusing your mind when you pray. First, you must practice silence. Jesus said in Matthew 6:6: «But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you». This is a very practical, but effective means to establishing a focused mind when you pray. Jesus here is talking about going to a private place. Now, there are two kinds of distractions: exterior distraction and internal distraction. Exterior distraction, that’s things like the cell phone, conversations, the cares of the world around you. In order to eliminate exterior distractions, you must have a scheduled time when you pray and you go away privately. You must practice both spontaneous and scheduled prayer. Spontaneous prayer is all throughout the day. You can be working, you can be conversing, you can be eating while you’re in prayer, talking to the Lord, even sometimes internally. But scheduled prayer is when you set aside that time to go and just focus on the presence of the Lord. And so Jesus gives us this powerful key to shut that door, to tell your loved ones, «This is my time to pray,» to turn off the cell phone, put away the laptop, put away the work, put away the concerns, and that takes care of, as I said, the exterior distraction. Now what about that interior distraction? How do you focus the mind when you have things going on inside of you internally that are causing you to lose focus when you pray? Well, these next two keys I’m gonna give you will help you to focus and fight against those internal distractions.

First, we have the prayer request. Philippians 4:6-7 say this: «Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus». Now, let’s break the scripture down. «Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything». Remember, worry is the flesh’s powerless counterfeit for prayer. Worry is how your flesh prays. But the scripture tells us that when we tell God what we need and when we thank Him for everything that He has done, then we will experience God’s peace. So when you unburden yourself by giving God your to-do list, by giving Him all your responsibilities, that is when you experience perfect peace. Now, I’m not saying that you just say, «Lord, take care of all my responsibilities and I leave them to you, and I’m not ever gonna do them». No, that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is the worry over those responsibilities, the concern over those tasks, that’s what you give to Him. When you submit your prayer requests to God, you’re lifting those burdens of life from off of your shoulders and you’re placing them in God’s hands. And in doing that, you experience the peace of God that fills your heart. Now, this is the mistake many believers make. They make their prayer requests, they tell 'em what they need, then they fill that burden lifted from off of them. They’re filled with peace, and they say, «I feel much better. Thank you, Lord». And then they walk out of the prayer room. But peace is not the conclusion of prayer. It’s the beginning of prayer. It’s when you’re filled with that peace that you can now focus the mind to go deeper into the places of prayer than ever before. So peace is not the conclusion of prayer. It’s the entryway. Again, I’m talking about focus. That first key to prayer is focus. How do you do that? Silence. Put away the exterior distractions by shutting yourself in for a moment to just be alone with the Lord. Second, the prayer requests. This helps to silence those internal distractions. Now, I wanna give you another key to silencing those internal distractions that you might become more focused in prayer. Isaiah 26:3: «Thou will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee». When you focus your mind on the Lord, you are filled with peace. When you focus your mind on the Lord, the cares of this world fade into the background. Worship is a key to focus, because when you’re worshiping Him, you’re looking at Him. When you’re worshiping Him, you’re not worried about your problems. You’re in awe of the presence of God. The glory of God is so brilliant, so beautiful, so blinding that when you’re focused on the light of His presence, it washes away everything around you. You get lost in that moment, raptured in His presence, if you will, and all of the cares and concerns of the world fade into the background. Now, again, I’m not saying that you set aside your responsibilities and never again pick them up. What I am saying is that when you go before the Lord, that is the time to lay things down that you might ascend to higher places. So key number one to effective prayer is focus. How do you focus? A, practice silence, B, use the prayer request, and C, worship.

Key number two: faith. Luke 10:38–42 says this: «As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. Her sister, Mary, sat at the Lord’s feet, listening to what He taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, 'Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.' But the Lord said to her, 'Dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.'» Some believers approach the Lord like Martha: from a works-based mentality. Others approach the Lord like Mary: from a fellowship-based mentality. Often, we think that prayer is our working to connect with God. And we’re so distracted by the work. We’re so consumed with what we think we have to do that we forget the way was already paid. The Bible says this in Matthew 6:9-13: «Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may Your name be kept holy. May Your kingdom come soon. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one». This is a very popular portion of scripture. This is the Lord’s Prayer, and He’s teaching us how to pray. Notice here that the Lord begins His prayer by saying, «Our Father in heaven». He recognizes who His father is. He doesn’t doubt that connection with God. He doesn’t even doubt that God hears Him. He didn’t begin prayer by saying, «Lord, do you hear me»? Which is how many of us begin? He didn’t begin that prayer by saying, «God, are you there»? He didn’t begin that prayer by imagining that He had to work up some connection. Remember this: We do not pray to connect with God. We pray from connection with God. It’s because we are already connected with Him that we can pray. Now, believers have issue with this because they imagine that their past sins disqualify them, or they think that because they skipped a few days of reading their Bible or maybe skipped church on Sunday, or because they made a mistake that now they have to work to gain back that relationship with God. But it’s not a points-based system. It’s not as though for every day that you miss prayer, God takes another step away from you. How could He ever leave you if He lives within you? No. You see what happens when we make mistakes, what happens when we neglect prayer is not that God distances Himself from us. It’s that we become less aware of the presence that’s always abiding with us. So instead of seeing prayer like a points-based system, instead of looking at prayer like an obligation that you have to check off the box in order to please God, look at it like an opportunity. See it for the opportunity that it is. Many believers neglect prayer because of this very reason. They think that it’s going to be work. They think that they have to exhaust themselves to conjure a connection with God, but there’s nothing that you and I can do in our own power or strength to ever connect with God. It’s all Him in the first place. So when you pray, go boldly. Don’t let the enemy lie to you. Don’t let the enemy tell you that God doesn’t hear you. Don’t let the enemy tell you that you have to work for that connection with God. Don’t let the enemy shame you because of your past, but do what the scripture says in Hebrews 4:16. «So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There, we will receive His mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most». Imagine how much time you could save in prayer if instead of begging God to hear you, you simply believe that He already does. Now, I’m not saying save time in prayer as in spend less time in prayer. I’m talking about those wasted moments of pleading and begging. We come at Him in an orphan mentality, trying to work up that relationship that’s already ours to keep. You could be enjoying more of your time in prayer instead of going through that initial moment of working and trying, as I said, like Martha, who imagined that she had to work for that connection with the Lord.

Number three, faithfulness. To become a man or woman of faithful daily prayer, you must make up your mind concerning prayer. People often ask me, «How do I pray more»? And honestly, the answer is simple: Choose to pray more. The reality is, I can’t lay hands on you and impart discipline. I’ve had believers come up to me and say, «David, can you pray for me»? And I say, «Sure. What do you want me to pray for»? And they say, «Pray that I would pray». I say, «Well, that really is on you». There are spiritual disciplines that we must choose to practice every single day. Yes, prayer is a spiritual act, but it’s also a practical discipline. That’s the partnership that we have with God. God will do the impossible after we’ve done the possible. Now, every sincere believer wants to pray consistently, but some believers have a certain view of prayer that actually keeps them from praying consistently. We imagine that daily prayer is like climbing a ladder. I prayed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and for every day of the week that I pray consistently, I take another step up that ladder. And then we imagine that if we miss a day of prayer, that we fallen off the ladder and we’ve lost all of our progress. Everything is gone now. Our connection with God is gone now. And then we’re filled with guilt and shame, and we’re even filled with great regret because we think that we’ve somehow messed up or blemished our record. Well, if you think of prayer in that way, it’s gonna be very difficult to pray faithfully. Because as you go to pray or reestablish your prayer life, you’re just gonna be thinking of all the days that you’ve missed. Here’s something that’s liberating. When I learn this, it set me free. When I miss days of prayer and I come back into the throne room, so to speak, I come back to that prayer life, I begin to establish again, consistency, God is not looking down at me with His arms folded, saying, «Well, well, well. Look who decided to show up today. Look who decided to pray. Where have you been all this time»? No, no, no, no. That’s not how the Lord is. When we go to pray after days of missing prayer, the Lord runs to us. He embraces us. He throws His arms around us and welcomes us home. So sometimes the guilt of having missed days of prayer can affect your faithfulness to prayer. Sometimes missing prayer on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will prevent you from praying on Thursday because you think, «Oh man, I have to do all this work again. All my progress is lost». Don’t look at it that way. That’s a very religious way to approach prayer. Matthew 26:40–41 say this: «Then He returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, 'Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak.'» We must commit to pray faithfully every single day, establishing that spiritual well in our lives, if you will. We must make that decision and we must arrange our entire schedule around it. Guard your prayer life and don’t let anybody touch you. Schedule your workflow. Schedule your time with your spouse and your family. Schedule your time with your friends. Ministers, schedule your time in ministry around your prayer life. Don’t compromise that for anyone or anything. Let that be a sacred time. And then faithfully commit to doing this. Arrange your schedule. Arrange your time, your workflow. You may even have to drop some commitments and hobbies in order to establish your prayer life, but do whatever it takes to establish this faithfulness to prayer.