"I will therefore that men pray every where..."  1 Timothy 2:8

It has been said that preaching moves men, but prayer moves God.  If that is the case, then it seems to me that we should do a lot more praying than preaching and a lot more time on our knees listening to God than sitting on our butts reading books.  Why is it that prayer seems to be the most neglected of all Christian duties?

The secret art of prayer intercession has become rare because it taxes the depths of your soul to contend before the Throne of God for hours in an all-out struggle to wage war. Few Christians care that much to pray that much. It is much easier to fellowship with other Christians than to lock oneself in that solitary closet for hours in travail with God.  That secret place of the Most High is not for the light and easy Christian who is content with Sunday services and professes a relatively clean life, but shrinks from crossing over to a crucified, broken walk of sacrifice.  They nibble at the Word of God and sip at the fountain of prayer, so they never receive the strength to break through to a deeper level in God.  They "have a little talk with Jesus" but never grapple with contending prayer.  Is it a small wonder that we have more faith in our carnal efforts than in a supernatural answer to prayer?

The prayer room is the battleground of Eternity.  It is there that all battles are fought and won ... or lost through the weakness of flesh. This is where we serve the Lord. Before anything can be accomplished on the streets, in the pulpit, or in any human endeavor, the victory must first be established in prayer.  Anything short of that would be stealing the glory from God, because if we accomplish it, then we can take the credit, but prayer - deep prevailing prayer - hands the victory over to God.  Attempting to serve God without being saturated with prayer until we have the victory in hand leads to spiritual pride and a holiness of the flesh.  We think we are doing great things by serving the Lord in the flesh, but all we are accomplishing is bolstering our own self-righteousness. 

There are two things this generation seems to have lost.  One is the ability to pray something all the way through until we receive an answer from God -- not a wisp of our imagination, but a real supernatural breakthrough.  Instead, we have convinced ourselves that we can make do with a time limit for our requests.  As a result, we resort to wishful thinking instead of faith to guide our Christian lives.

The other thing we seem to have forgotten is the ability to pray like a warrior.  I hear people proudly mention their "quiet time" with God each morning. I believe them.  Nobody's talking, and nobody's answering. Is this how Elijah stopped the rain? Could it be that this is the reason our generation has no miracles, not outpouring in our services, no supernatural moves of God, and no souls at the altar getting saved? 

Maybe God isn't answering us because He can't hear us.