Praying with Paul: A Call to Spiritual Reformation

by D.A. Carson

But after all the difficulties have been duly recognized and all the dangers of legalism properly acknowledged, the fact remains that unless we plan to pray we will not pray. The reason we pray so little is that we do not plan to pray.

Choose models, but choose them well. Study their content, their breadth, their passion, their unction—but do not ape their idiom. 5.

The list to which I am referring is the publication Operation World,4 which over the course of a year takes you around the world to country after country and region after region, and provides you with succinct, intelligent information to assist you in your prayers. Its value lies in its ability to enlarge your horizons, to expand your interest in the world church and the world’s needs.

In other words, the first sheet focused on people for whom I prayed constantly; the second included people and situations for whom I might pray for a short or an extended period of time, but probably not indefinitely. The entries on the first sheet did not change, but their particular needs often did; the entries on the second sheet were largely shaped by short-term needs, and names and concerns were often added and deleted.

Mingle praise, confession, and intercession, but when you intercede, try to tie as many requests as possible to Scripture.

“Christian prayer is marked decisively by petition, because this form of prayer discloses the true state of affairs. It reminds the believer that God is the source of all good, and that human beings are utterly dependent and stand in need of everything.”

Ideally the church is different. It is made up of people who are as varied as can be: rich and poor, learned and unlearned, practical and impractical, sophisticated and unsophisticated, aristocratic and plebeian, disciplined and flighty, intense and carefree, extrovert and introvert—and everything in between. The only thing that holds such people together is their shared allegiance to Jesus Christ, their devotion to him, stemming from his indescribable love for them.