Balanced Christian Life: by Watchman Nee

Author:Watchman Nee
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780935008531
Publisher: Christian Fellowship Pub.
Published: 1981-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

Watch and Pray

73

Lord answered this woman’s request because she has uttered the right phrase. Hence, besides having a proper heart desire before God, we must also see to it that we have the right words with which to express our desire. How often we truly have a heart aspiration within, yet after we pray for a while our words begin to drift away from the burden we have. Let us realize that all powerful prayers have excellent phraseology. Yet this observation is not meant to imply that we should in advance compose a good prayer and then recite it to God.

We have now come to understand two important things

concerning prayer: we must pay attention to guard our heart desire and to use the proper words. We shall next notice a third thing. We need to watch as to how we ask. A most pitiful thing is that many who have a proper desire and the right words do not know how to watch themselves in prayer. So that before long their words have drifted far afield—way beyond the point of return. For this reason, in prayer we need to make sure our words do not run wild. Especially in loud prayers should we carefully examine to see if our words have wandered far from the subject. If so, we must draw them back. Such wandering can easily happen because although at the beginning we really have something in heart to ask, yet as we utter one sentence after another we can unconsciously leave the center and move the words of our prayer into other directions. If we realize we have indeed left the center, we must begin anew and redirect our words back to the subject. Let us be careful in having our prayer “hitched”

to the goal we have in mind without any let up. It is important in prayer that it is maintained with vigilance and firmness so that no unnecessary words may filter in. What is being emphasized here is that we not allow any unnecessary or vain words to infiltrate our prayer. We must guard against many speeches and arguments invading our prayers.

In conclusion, then, the points we have just discussed include these three things: first, that in order to eliminate ineffective prayer, 74

A Balanced Christian Life

we must have a heart desire, that is to say, we must have in view a specific object for which to ask; second, we need to have exact phraseology—our words must be right; and third, we should maintain a good condition during prayer by not allowing unimportant words to be added to our prayer so that we are kept from praying what is not prayer.

Fourth: Praying at All Seasons

For our prayer to be truly effective, we must spread out our prayer like a net. What does this mean? It means we must pray with all prayers so that nothing is left out which should be prayed for. We will not allow anything to slip away. Without such a “prayer net” we will not be able to obtain good results.

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