For so long I thought that it was the men and women who prayed a lot that shook the world and really moved powerfully with God. But then I came and saw many who prayed long and hard but with little results. I realized tonight that it is victorious believing prayer that is the key. Those people who pray with expectation and don’t give up until they get what they need from God.

“What do you want David? What are you living for? You can find all of your desires fulfilled at my hand because I put them in your heart. “

One of my friends spent a lot of time in prayer with Lou Engle and he heard a story about this 16 year old guy that had incredible heart of intercession. She was almost constantly fasting, she prayed so much on her knees in her room that her bones actually came through her skin. Her parents got so worried that they took her to a doctor and he said “You absolutely have to start eating and praying less intensely on your knees.”

So her parents asked her to tone it down a bit but then they were watching the news and actually seeing the things that she was praying for come to pass. There was a murderer that had been on the loose for months and when she started praying for him to be found the police just happened upon him and things like that. Her parents so realized that God brought her to this place that they let her go back to this type of prayer and fasting. Her prayers were actually changing the outcome of world events. She prayed specific things and prayed through until God released her and answered her prayers.

Praying specifically creates an atmosphere of faith, and expectancy. Because you expect it to come to pass. George Mueller and Smith Wigglesworth were known as apostles of faith.  They were known for their definite and specific prayers. George Mueller had 70,000 specific answers to prayer recorded in his lifetime. Smith Wigglesworth would pray against a disease or injury specifically with an expectation of results. Believing prayer is victorious and it demands an answer and it is not satisfied until it receives what it came for.

How could that friend who was begging for bread be satisfied with anything else but the food his guest needed? The reason that so many people don’t know if God answers prayer is because we pray these generic prayers or specific prayers for things that are almost guaranteed to happen by calculable odds like safety on a car trip. Where is our faith!?!?! Where is that tenacity to approach God for the things that we very much need and desire? I believe that it is our main duty to find him as our delight and then our secondary duty is to come  to him with every single request (Psalms 37:4, and Phil 4:6).

Prayer meetings are boring until they become believing meetings, times when we come together to believe God for the impossible. I love the tenacity of A.A. Allen, he locked himself in a room until God anointed him with his healing power 8 days later. Or Jacob absolutely prevailing with God for a night, getting a new name and being the very patriarch of God’s chosen people. “I will not let you go until you bless me!” God loves that attitude!

Why would Jesus make so many promises again and again in Scripture like “Ask whatever you wish in my name and it will be given to you” (John 14).  With that great freedom does come great responsibility. But does not that great responsibility compel us even closer to God’s heart to understand his ways and what he wants? Let’s not just see him as a cosmic Santa Claus, but pursue his heart to know him as the loving father that loves to express his love to his children in tangible ways.

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