Check Your Prayer Pulse (Answer Key)

After checking your prayer pulse, do you need some Prayer CPR? Don’t be discouraged. Most of us do. Here are three simple steps to help strengthen your prayer heartbeat!

C – COMMIT

Prayer is an act of the will. It’s not dependent on feelings. The first step to improve your prayer life is to make a commitment to do so.

P – PLAN

First Peter 4:7 says, “The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.” Prayer requires a clear mind and self-control. If you want to pray more, you need a plan to set aside some time to do so. Do you need to roll back your alarm by a few minutes? Or could you use that half-hour before your child’s sporting event to pray in the car? Or do you walk your dog every day?–that would be a good time to pray.

Maybe you need some ideas, resources and helps to spur you on. Maybe you need to start a prayer journal or list. Come up with a plan. It can be a very simple one, but a plan will help you stay on course.

R – RELY

Rely on the Word: John 15:7 says “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” So the more you are in the word and have the Lord’s word abiding in you, the more effective your prayers will be.
Rely on the Spirit: The Spirit helps us in our weakness. “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit prompts us what to pray (Eph. 6:18) and helps us with self-control (2 Tim. 1:7). We pray well when we LISTEN to the Holy Spirit and pray what the Spirit prompts us to pray.
Rely on God’s Promises: God has promised to hear us when we pray. “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). He may not answer in exactly the way we want, or when we want, but he will answer. And the more we pray, the more answers we’ll see.