In the morning, O Lord, I will direct my song and my prayer unto You and will look up.  (Psalm 5:3)

O Lord. I feel so weak.  So helpless.  So unworthy.  So guilty.  So lazy and so unqualified.  I feel fleshly, not spiritual, and burdened, not free. 

If You were to mark iniquities, O Lord, surely I would be the first to fall.

Thank You for grace. Thank You for Thy infinite mercy.

Thank You that this is not about me.

It’s all about Thee.  Thy riches, Thy supply, Thy will, and Thy honor.

I have no words to say how liberating that is.

Thank You, Father.

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Ronald Dunn, now in Heaven, was a prolific writer and speaker on prayer and the deeper life.  He pastored in Texas and authored many books.  What follows are stories taken from his book “Don’t Just Stand There, Pray Something: The Incredible Power of Intercessory Prayer.” Published in 1991 by Thomas Nelson.

First story. (I’ve heard this from numerous speakers, but it’s Ron’s story.)

I was speaking at a banquet for a church’s intercessory prayer ministry when (this mother of a teenager) shared a recent answer to prayer. A few days before, as she was getting a pie ready to put into the oven, the phone rang,  It was the school nurse.  Her son had come down with a high fever and would she come and take him home?

The mother calculated how long it would take to drive to school and back, and how long the pie should bake, and concluded there was enough time. Popping the pie into the oven, she left for school. When she arrived, her son’s fever was worse and the nurse urged her to take him to the doctor.

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“Call to me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).

God knows a zillion things we do not.

Let’s start with that no-brainer.

The overwhelming majority of “things God knows” are, I expect, reserved exclusively for Him. “The secret things belong to God,” we’re told in Deuteronomy 29:29. The farthest reaches of this enormous universe are seen and appreciated only by Him and His legions.  And the heavenly realm itself is His and His alone.

However.

The Heavenly Father has many things He is dying to show us, to reveal to us, to allow us to stumble upon, or learn in His classroom.

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“Your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him.” –Matthew 6:8.

We would all like to lose weight without dieting.  We’d like to get healthy and have our muscles toned up while we sleep.  We’d like to get a college degree without going to class or studying.

Those are not about to happen.

Spiritual disciplines require great effort from us also.  Whether we are fasting and enduring great tribulation for Jesus’ sake, or doing something as simple as studying our Sunday School lesson and offering grace before meals, conscious effort is required, and that means a strong focus on the Savior.

Prayer is hard work, we are told.

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