The Power of Simple Prayer: How to Talk With God About Everything

by Joyce Meyer

  An attitude of honor and submission toward authority needs to permeate our everyday lives—because remember, God puts authority in place in order to keep us safe and to promote our joy. He gives us both spiritual authority and natural authority and it is just as important to obey natural authority as it is to obey spiritual authority. So, if somebody asks you not to sit somewhere, don’t sit there. If there is a “no parking” zone, don't park there, even “just for a minute.” If the only parking space available is a handicapped space and you are not handicapped, don’t park there even if it means having to walk a long way! If a red light flashes “Do not walk,” then don’t walk. Don’t cross the street anyway simply because you cut your time too close and are in a hurry. If there is a sign saying “Please put your grocery cart back here when you unload your groceries,” then take your grocery cart and put it back there when you unload your groceries. Don’t leave it out in the middle of the parking lot to bump into someone else’s car!

  You may be thinking, Well, those things can’t make any difference. That’s all little stuff. I’ve got big problems. You do have big problems and you will keep your big problems if that’s the way you feel about the “little stuff”! We all keep our big problems until we learn that our little, everyday attitudes and mind-sets add up to create either big troubles or big blessings.

  Behaviors similar to the ones I have just described reflect a sloppy attitude toward authority, which essentially says: “I’m going to do what I want to because I don’t think you’re right.” We do not have to think someone or something is right. All we need to do is obey the rules, and if we do, God will bless us. On the contrary, if we have a stiff-necked attitude about authority, we are not going to be blessed and our prayers will not be effective. Remember the strong words of Proverbs 28:9: “He who turns away his ear from hearing the law [of God and man], even his prayer is an abomination, hateful and revolting [to God].”

  FOCUS ON OTHERS

  Another key to powerful prayer is to focus on others and not obsess about our own needs. We can pray for ourselves and we can pray for radical blessings for ourselves, but we need to avoid praying for ourselves all the time. Prayers of self-indulgence—-selfish, self--centered prayers—are not effective, so we really need to make sure that we spend time praying for other people. I am constantly hearing about four or five people who need prayer, and just when some of those prayers are answered, I will become aware of other people to pray for. Your life is probably similar. You hear of someone who recently lost a loved one, someone who needs a job, somebody who needs a place to live, somebody who just received a bad report from the doctor, someone whose child is sick, or somebody whose spouse just walked out. People have all kinds of needs, and they need our prayers. God wants us to pray for one another with loving, selfless attitudes because our prayers cannot be answered otherwise. I want to challenge you to ask God to give you someone for whom you can pray. Initially, you may not even know what to pray for, but sometimes, if you just get quiet in His presence and ask, He will begin to show you things and help you pray. I wrote about praying for others in the chapter on intercession and I personally know this type of prayer to be extremely valuable, rewarding, and effective. It is important to understand that God places priority on people, and as we learn that, people will become our priority also.

  BE GOOD TO PEOPLE

  Proverbs 21:13 says: “Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor will cry out himself and not be heard.” This means that when I do not pay attention to people in need and do not do anything to help them, then God may not be inclined to answer my call for help when I have a need.

  Being good to people extends beyond our inner circle of friends and family to our communities. There are some very serious situations going on in our own cities. I remember reading a statistic one time that said the average age of a homeless person in St. Louis was seven years old. In my city! Do you know what my response to that might have been twenty years ago? I would have said, “That is really pathetic.” But now, I become aware of realities such as that one and say, “I’m going to do something about that!” People might say, “It’s easy for you to say that, Joyce; you’ve got a big ministry and access to lots of people who can help.” You may not have some of the resources we have in the ministry, but you have the same ability to pray that I do. You can give an offering to ministries that are trying to help and meet needs. You can go and volunteer a little bit of time. All of us can do something if we really want to.

  I believe a lot of our prayers go unanswered because we do not treat others well and we do not extend mercy or compassion to the difficult situations around us.

  I believe a lot of our prayers go unanswered because we do not treat others well and we do not extend mercy or compassion to the difficult situations around us. Isaiah 58:6–9 gives the true picture: “[Rather] is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every [enslaving] yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood? Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and He will say, Here I am.” All the prophet Isaiah is really encouraging us to do is to be good to people. The result? God Himself will say to you, “Here I am. What do you need? What can I do for you?”

  We can receive a tremendous harvest just by being nice! What do I mean by that? Well, for example:

  • Don’t be rude.

  • Let somebody go ahead of you in the grocery store line.

  • Let somebody have a parking place you wanted.

  • Don’t make big issues out of little things.

  • Don’t throw a fit every time your spouse asks you to pick up your dirty socks or asks you to take out the garbage—just pick up the socks or take out the trash and be gracious about it.

  • Speak kindly to your children.

  • Say “thank you” to retail clerks, service people, bank tellers, and others who help you.

  • Smile.

  • Give an older person your seat if no more seats are available.

  It is very important to God that we treat people well. If you have ever been mistreated, then you know how painful that is. You may be in a situation right now in which you are being mistreated or you are mistreating someone else. If you want to pray powerful prayers—if you want God’s ears to perk up at the sound of your voice—you will have to treat people well and be good to them.

  FORGIVE

  If we want to pray prayers that are powerful, we simply must have clean hearts when we approach God—and one sure way to be clean before Him is to make sure that we have forgiven everyone who has hurt or offended us. Forgiveness is not easy, but it is a prerequisite for effective prayer. Jesus instructs us, in Mark 11:25: “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father Who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop.”

  Although Jesus’ disciples were familiar with His teachings on forgiveness, they still found it a challenge. Peter asked Him one day, “Lord, how many times may my brother sin against me and I forgive him and let it go? [As many as] up to seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). Jesus essentially said: “No. How about seventy times seven?” The number “seven” represents completion or perfection, so all Jesus was really saying was: “Keep on forgiving, and keep on forgiving and keep forgiving until it works.”

  Forgiveness is manifested mercy; it is love in action.

&n
bsp; Even though we know we must forgive, forgiving those who hurt us is not easy because our emotions are involved. In order to forgive, we must realize that forgiveness is not something we feel, it is a decision we make. Anytime we make right decisions, our feelings will eventually follow, but it may take some time before they do.

  When we have been hurt, we feel that opening our hearts again to the people who hurt us will be impossible. We want to shut them out of our lives and avoid them if at all possible. These are natural reactions, but they are not God’s way. God forgives us daily and He expects us to forgive others.

  I remember a time when Dave really hurt my feelings and I could not seem to open my mouth to talk to him, let alone be friendly. As usual, the Holy Spirit was pressing me to behave in a godly way, but I had no strength to do it. I went to my office at home, where I frequently pray, and told God, “I am not coming out of here until You give me the grace to go out and talk to Dave as if he had never hurt my feelings. I know he didn’t hurt me on purpose and I want to drop it and let it go.”

  I not only prayed, but I looked up several Scriptures on forgiveness and the danger of staying angry. Before long, I felt my heart softening and opening up to Dave again. I was able to go out of the room and resume my normal relationship with him.

  I encourage you to pray when you need to forgive. Don’t just “try” to forgive, but depend on God to give you grace, which enables you to do the hard things in life. Too often we “try” without going to God for help. When we do that, we are operating on our own. We must remember that Jesus said, “Apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

  Prayer opens the door for God to work, so when you need to forgive, pray until you’re released from the anger you feel and then to be obedient to God.

  When we forgive, we are being Christlike; we are acting as God acts—because He is a forgiving God. Forgiveness is manifested mercy; it is love in action—not love based on a feeling, but love based on a decision, an intentional choice to obey God. In fact, I believe forgiveness is the highest form of love. And I believe that love is so important to powerful, effective prayer that I have devoted the next chapter to that subject. Forgiveness and love go hand in hand and expressing them honors and glorifies God, puts us in agreement with Him, and causes us to obey His Word—which all bring great power to our prayers.

  BE EXPECTANT

  There was a time in my prayer life when I was about to burst with expectation. Every time I prayed, I prayed with tremendous faith, fully expecting God to do exactly as I requested. Then for some reason, I lost that “edge” to my prayer life and my sense of expectation began to fizzle out. But God did not let me stay that way for long. He began dealing with me, encouraging me to be aggressive again in my expectations and to express them in prayer, expecting Him to do great things in the earth and in my life. I am not talking about “name-it-and-claim-it” prayers that people can say every time they see something they want; I am talking about prayers that are filled with God-given expectation, God-given desires, and God-given vision—prayers that are prayed in faith from a pure heart.

  As I returned to an aggressive attitude in my expectations, I said things like, “God, I am expecting favor everywhere I go today. I am expecting favor from You and favor with everyone with whom I come in contact.” I prayed prayers such as, “God, I am expecting good news today. I am expecting to be amazed at the great things You do.” It was amazing how many times the phone rang on those days and I picked it up to hear something incredibly encouraging. Sometimes people even said, “Joyce, I’ve got good news for you!”

  I have learned that many people do not pray for good news because they are so afraid of bad news! That’s not a godly attitude. If we want to see the power of God released in our lives, we need to have attitudes that are pleasing to Him. We need to have positive expectations instead of negative ones. Our basic approach to life needs to align with faith and hope and good expectations, because the Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God (see Hebrews 11:6) and that hope will never disappoint us (see Romans 5:5). There is nothing negative about God; there is nothing in Him or in His actions that will ever disappoint us; everything He does is for our good—so that’s what we need to expect as we pray. We should not pray and then wonder if God will do anything at all; we should pray expecting God to do even more than we have asked.

  If we want to see the power of God released in our lives, we need to have attitudes that are pleasing to Him.

  I encourage you confidently to expect big things from God. Many Christians can quote Ephesians 3:20 as the verse that says God “is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (NKJV). But I want you to see that verse from the Amplified Bible. It says that God “is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams].” Did you catch that? God can do “superabundantly, far over and above all” that we would ever dare to ask or even think to ask and infinitely beyond our “highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams.” Now that is amazing—and that should give us all the confidence we need in order to pray expectantly. Personally, I would rather pray big prayers with great expectations and receive half of what I prayed for than to pray little puny prayers without any faith and get it all!

  There is another important phrase in Ephesians 3:20 and we need to pay attention to it. Some translations place it before all the superabundant things God can do for us and some place it afterward. Either way, it’s necessary; and it says, “according to the power that works in us” (NKJV). The Amplified Bible says that God can do so much more than we can even ask or imagine “by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us.” What is the power that works in us? It is the power of God, and it comes through simple, believing prayer.

  When we have power, we are able to pray expectantly, but at the same time, expectancy carries its own kind of power—the power of hope, the power of faith. God’s power is released when we pray in faith, trusting and believing Him, because faith pleases Him. Expectancy is an attribute of faith. Faith reaches out into the spiritual realm and expects God’s supernatural power to show up and do what no person on earth could do. Doubt, on the other hand, is afraid nothing good will happen; it does not please God and is not something He tends to bless. We are powerless when we live with doubt, disappointment, and a lack of confidence in God.

  Just think about a time when you were not really sure God would come through for you. You were not able to pray very powerful prayers, were you? Now recall a time when your heart trusted completely in God and you knew that He would come through for you. You were able to pray then with a certain sense of power, weren’t you? That’s the power of expectation in prayer. Even if things don’t work out exactly the way you hoped they would, trust God to know what is best and keep expecting Him to do great things.

  SUMMARY

  We want our prayers to be powerful and effective. When we pray, we really want to know that we are partnering with God to make a difference in someone’s life or in a situation. In order to pray successfully, we need to understand the keys to effective prayer, which include: obedience to God, being consistently and uncompromisingly righteous, persistence, being properly submitted to those in authority over us, praying for others more than we pray for ourselves, treating people well, extending forgiveness just as we have been forgiven, and praying with expectation. As we endeavor to incorporate these attitudes and actions in our prayer lives, we will experience the joy of effective, answered prayer.

  Prayer Points

  • Obey God. Obedience reveals our love for God and is an important condition for effective prayer.

  • Be consistently righteous, which means to refuse to compromise. God hears the prayers of the consistently righteous and He blesses uncompromising righteousness in awesome ways.

  • Keep on p
raying. Pray persistently under the Spirit’s direction, and do not give up until the answer comes.

  • Be properly related to authority. A heart that can submit to natural authority and to spiritual authority can also submit to God. God’s authority is designed for our welfare and it promotes our joy.

  • Focus on others. Selfishness will hinder our prayers, but focusing on others is a key to praying successfully.

  • Be good to people. Treating people well is important to God and keeps us in obedience to His Word.

  • Forgive. Forgiveness is the highest form of love, and according to Mark 11:25, it is a prerequisite to God hearing our prayers.