Forward to a New YearSample

Cover Each Step in Prayer

God’s desires flourish in prepared hearts, just like seeds in furrowed ground. Yesterday I urged you to imagine your future. If you’re saying, “Yes! I want to do that!” but you’re not certain what your dream is, or what the next step forward is, then prayer is the answer.

How can you be sure the dream in your heart is God’s will, not yours? You must humbly and specifically ask God to place His ideas for your life into your heart and mind.

To do this, you must first pray earnestly and persistently. As God begins to give you impressions and thoughts about your future, commit them to Him in serious, ongoing prayer.

Many Christians have forgotten how to pray earnestly and with fervor. When did you last pour yourself into an earnest season of prayer? We get too busy, don’t we?

Prayer is the divine energy that brings the power of God into the plans He gives you, but you must learn to pray with fervor, persistence, and faith. I don’t know any shortcut for this. God guides His children as they learn the joy of praying to Him night and day.

Second, pray quickly. It’s wonderful to have a special extended time in prayer, beseeching God for His favors. But sometimes you have to pray instantly, urgently, on the spur of the moment. The Lord hears those prayers too!

I urge you to learn to pray quickly, silently, and instantly, like shooting an arrow to heaven. Even if it’s just “Help me, Lord!”

As God drops His seeds of inspiration into your mind and you pray over them—whether in quiet, extended prayer or in a quick, in-the-moment prayer—you’ll learn to trust Him for His own brand of success. You have to expect Him to do things His way.

Whenever you pray, do it with commitment and trust. Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans” (niv). The word commit means to “entrust.” God can be trusted with your dreams—to divulge them, develop them, sometimes delay them, and always drench them with His blessings.

I believe with all my heart the God of heaven will grant success to His sincere children who seek His will for their lives. But remember, success doesn’t necessarily mean health, wealth, fame, and fortune. When God uses the term success, it means the fulfillment of His plan for you. And you have to trust Him however that unfolds if you want to move forward.

Commit to the Lord whatever you do with this attitude—Lord, not my will but Yours be done. The Lord Jesus has a wonderful way of fulfilling your plans beyond your expectations when you surrender your plans to Him. He is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us” (Eph. 3:20).

Make prayer a working principle in your life by praying over every step you take. The only way to stay shipshape is to ask God for overcoming strength in overwhelming moments, and to go forward in His power. Remember, it’s not your dream God wants—it’s you!

There’s nothing like the joy of watching God form and fulfill His plan for your life. And it only happens as you step toward your dreams in His presence through prayer.

Respond: 

1. How can you commit to praying over your next steps fervently and persistently? By yourself? With others? Make a specific plan in your calendar to devote significant time and energy to prayer as the year begins, and record how it effects your energy and insight in the coming days. 

2. How can you prepare yourself to “pray quickly”? What “arrows” of prayer can you have on hand to shoot up at a moment’s notice? List a few short prayers and practice sending them up on the spur of the moment each day. How does this type of prayer empower you? 

3. Take some time to write out prayers of trust and thanksgiving for the way God guides and directs you this week. How does it relieve you to be able to release your future into God’s hands in this way?