Our pastor preached on prayer at church yesterday. It was good for all of us in the congregation, I think,  to do a bit of a self-check on how well (and how regularly) we’re communicating with God these days.  It’s easy, isn’t it, to get stuck in a rut? Or get sidetracked all together! (Hmmm …  Should I pray, or check Facebook …?)

Don’t laugh.  I’ll bet it’s a more common choice than you think.  Both give you a relational fix but I’ll bet the devil is sure hoping we’ll all pick Facebook! (Don’t get me wrong. I like Facebook. I’m just talking priorities here.)

So, I’ll pass along to you the question we considered in church yesterday. How’s YOUR prayer life lately?  Are you on a roll … or feeling kind of dry? If it’s the latter,  don’t be too hard on yourself! And don’t give up entirely. We all have seasons where prayer is more of a challenge than at other times.  Thankfully, we have a God who loves to make “streams in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19), especially when those deserts are our own hearts.

Here’s a little self-evaluation I developed a few years ago when I was a columnist and editor for Pray! magazine. I’m posting it here so you can use it, if you like, to assess and figure out if (and where) your own prayer life might need a boost.

If you’re “booming”—great! But if your prayer life is a bit of a bust lately, I hope you’ll be encouraged to pick up the Conversation again.

It’s been said that the family that prays together, stays together—but do you know just how true that really is? Seriously! A 1993 Gallup poll revealed that among married couples who attend church together regularly, the divorce rate is one out of two.  How sad. That’s the same statistic as for marriages anywhere. But get this: among couples who pray together daily, the divorce rate is one out of 1,153. [i]What a difference!

One of the best gifts a couple can give their children (and each other) is the gift of a strong marriage and family life knit together through prayer. Prayer builds unity and intimacy. We become intimate to whom we pray, for whom we pray, and with whom we pray. Prayer is the key to unlocking extraordinary blessings for children and families the way a key unlocks a gate.

Years ago, my husband Doug came up with a slogan for our family that, in our house, prayer should always be “the first response, not a last resort.” I’d go so far to say that prayer has not only been our lifeline to heaven (and sometimes to sanity!), but it’s also been our greatest and most valued parenting tool.

What that's meant for this mom, specifically, has been to make every effort to pray first, open mouth second. I've had to work on it even harder as my kids have grown and become adults.  More often than not, my role is not to fix, not to correct, not to express an opinion … but to pray.  And then step back and trust God. (Yes, hard to do I know. But He always comes through and I’ve learned to trust Him.)

Proverbs 31: 27 says, “She watches over the affairs of her household.” I skipped merrily over that verse for years until one day I just happened to read it at the same time as I was reading elsewhere in the Bible that day. Isaiah 62:6-7 says, “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest.”

That jumped out at me. I’m a word person. Both roots of those words—watches and watchman—have similar meanings, “to peer into the distance, observe, watch; to hedge about (as with thorns), guard, protect, attend to”[ii] They can also be translated “lookout” or “doorkeeper.”[iii]

How very cool.  I realized way back then that prayer is one of the most powerful roles a mother can play in her children’s lives. So much more can be accomplished for my kids from my knees than from my mouth! Correction, instruction, suggestions, and advice are all very well and good—and necessary.  But years of experience tell me (and I know many other praying moms who will agree with me) that some of the most powerful breakthroughs I’ve seen with my children have been when I prayed instead of only trying to fix a situation with natural means.

My friend Cindy has a sign posted in her family room, where she can see it every day, that says PRAY BIG. I love it.  I think it's the perfect mom-slogan. :-)

Have you PRAYED for your kids today?

I love Psalm 27:8: “My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.’” I notice David didn’t say, “Sorry, God, I’m too busy doing (and praying) all this other stuff for You.” He responded immediately to God’s invitation to come into His presence. Once he was there, David prayed, “Teach me how to live, O Lord. Lead me along the right path” (vs. 11).

David’s strength and direction for life, obviously—like Jesus’—came directly out if His intimate
conversations with God in prayer. In fact, Jesus’ amazing, supernatural ministry was absolutely rooted in intimacy and time spent with the Father (Lk. 6:12; Jn. 8:28, 12:49-50, 14:9).

Why on earth do I think I can get away with any less? I think I’m really finally understanding (and experiencing) the bottom line—that intimacy and power are intricately and inseparably intertwined.

I need more of God’s power in my life—don't you? But instead of going for the power first—instead of asking for the strength, wisdom, direction, provision, or even miracles I need first—I am learning to go for the presence first.

Amazingly, all those other things seem to come a lot more easily after that ...