Last Sunday I talked about Two Chairs. This Sunday I want to talk about another prayer strategy. The prayer Closet. The prayer closet is quite popular and became somewhat mainstream in the movie The War Room by the Kendrick Brothers. This has biblical support as in Mathew 6-6
“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
A prayer closet not only gives you the privacy the Bible says, but also gives you the opportunity to create a vision board so you have your prayer strategy layed out. Instead of praying for what is most pressing, you can create a strategy to pray for what is important, and then for what is urgent. In the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey teaches us about the 4 quadrants. Quadrant 1 – Urgent and Important, Q2 – Not Urgent and Important, Q3 – Urgent and Not Important, Q4 – Not Urgent and Not Important.
Often we fail to see what is truly important and as Stephen says we tend to spend too much time on Q3. And THIS is where the Enemy robs you of your time. Jennifer Sheehan likes to say “If the enemy can’t make you bad, he will make you busy”.
And we tend to spend the vast majority of our time fighting for things that are completely unimportant, but look urgent. By creating clarity in your life, and focusing on what really matters you can pray for what matters and not for what is screaming at you.
Example: You need money to pay the electric bill or they will cut out your electricity. That looks urgent and you will consume your entire time finding ways to pay one bill. But money is temporary and will vanish again next month.
So instead of praying to get a few dollars to pay your electric bill, you really should be praying for God to give your wisdom. What!? Yes wisdom! Because when you have wisdom you will understand what your boss or clients really NEED, and in providing what your clients really NEED you will always have money and will never have to worry about bills.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Proverbs 90-12
Confusing? We will talk more about Goals and Strategy next Sunday.
“The PLANS of the diligent lead to PROFIT as surely as haste leads to poverty”. Proverbs 21:5