Do You Have a Prayer List?

Have you seen the lists in stores by the school supply racks? "NEEDED FOR 4th GRADERS AT ROOSEVELT ELEMENTARY," or "SUPPLIES FOR MRS. JOHNSTON'S 2nd GRADE CLASS." These lists help parents send children back to school. They also provide a learning experience for children who will grow up using lists to manage the details of life.

Lists can also be useful in the spiritual realm. Most pastors list their goals or highest convictions. I put mine above my shaving mirror. Many people make lists of prayer requests. Do you have a list of people or needs that you regularly take to the Father? I have several prayer lists. They include family members, our church membership roll, other pastors, missionaries and unsaved friends. Some people have a different list for every day of the week. I have discovered some surprising benefits in prayer lists.

Resting in Prayer

Jesus not only wrestled in prayer; He used prayer as a resting-place. In Mark chapter 6 Jesus took his disciples to a desert place to rest. But their rest was postponed by a needy multitude. After ministering to them all day, Jesus sent His disciples away and went up the mountain to pray. Prayer was His vacation.

Despite the emotional and spiritual effort of prayer, I find a serendipitous refuge in my prayer lists. Some evenings I come home exhausted. I start to flop in front of the TV when I remember an unfinished prayer list. Almost against my will, I turn aside to pray. I am regularly surprised by how the Lord lifts me emotionally and spiritually. Prayer is far more refreshing than other efforts to wind down after a frenzied day. I thank God for my lists that remind me to rest in Him.

Stretching My Prayer Life

Humans have an amazing capacity to stretch under pressure. A novice weight lifter strains at ten repetitions of the empty bar. But after a few weeks of work out he finds an impressive difference in the amount of iron he can pump. It takes a student weeks to comprehend his first algebraic abstraction. But before the semester is over he is mastering three concepts a week.

God uses prayer to stretch your spiritual capacity. You can easily see this in the amount of time you spend in prayer. At first you cannot pray for five minutes. At that stage you may wonder why Jesus was surprised that His disciples couldn't pray with Him for an hour¹. The more consistently you pray, the more you desire to remain in the Father's presence. You can also see prayer stretch your ability to forgive, your compassion for other people, and your faith.

There are limits to how much a person can develop physically. Intellectual limits may be less restrictive. But what about our spiritual limits? What are their boundaries? Spiritual growth is only limited by the infinite measure of Almighty God.

Increasing My Faith

Prayer lists stretch my faith and my compassion. Without the discipline of a list I wouldn't pray for someone I disagree with on a hot issue. It is beyond my human nature to care for that person. I did not realize I was jealous of that successful pastor until I put his name on a prayer list. I lose pounds of ugly pride every time I pray for him. I pray for lost people that I don't yet have the courage or opportunity to witness to. I was flabbergasted to see a man belonging to a cult in church last Sunday. I would not have been praying for him if several months ago I had not put his name on a list.

Last year I was at a prayer conference where a man stood and said, "We used to be a cult. We held false doctrines that made us less than Christian. But because of the faithful prayers of Christian people our churches have repented."

I pray daily for some prickly thorns in our family tree. My natural tendency has been to ignore them. Now God is weaving them into the fabric my heart. What impossible thing does God want to stretch you to pray for?

Do you have a list? Get a notebook or your hand-held computer and start a prayer list today. It does not have to be large at first. If you consistently pray for your list, God will grow it to His dimensions as He develops your relationship with Him.

¹Matthew 26:38-41