It is possible for us to slide into a pattern of prayer that has lost track of Who it is we are addressing.  Someone listening to our personal prayer may think we are filled with love, wisdom and power ourselves. The God we talk to becomes one from who we are trying to wring these attributes.

“Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of God’s willingness.” George Mueller, 19th century saint, quoted in Breakthrough Prayer, p83.

When we pray for chronic struggles or crisis that are repetitive in one person’s life we need to remind ourselves that our faith is based on what God has promised and not on the story that we see unfolding.

Let’s keep an active memory of both God’s character and the promises found in his word. When we know we are praying to a faithful God for what he has already promised we can pray with boldness.

Each of us has a list of prayers that we have prayed a long time. Some of them may be for people we love who have wandered from the faith or not yet embraced faith, some may be for physical or mental suffering, and some for relational brokenness. Name your unanswered prayer and pray it anew with faith in God’s willingness to answer rather than allowing the enemy to tell you that God is reluctant.

To do this you may need to unplug your prayer practice and plug it in again right away. In computer language this is called reboot.