Do you ever read a Bible verse that you have read at least a dozen times before, one that you are very familiar with, and suddenly have God surprise you with a totally different take on it? I love it when that happens! It happened to me this morning as I was once again studying in the book of Isaiah. When I came to a familiar passage in chapter 56, verse seven in particular, I stopped for a moment to consider what it said and in the midst of my thoughts God spoke something new to my heart. But before I get too far ahead of myself let me share with you what the verse says or more precisely, what the part of the verse that spoke to me says. “For My house shall be called a house of prayer”.
Twice in the verse, the phrase “house of prayer” is used and as always, I thought of the church itself being the house of prayer. However, right in the midst of this thought process God spoke something else into my heart. He reminded me that as His dwelling place I was in fact supposed to be a house of prayer. This took me quite by surprise as I had never actually thought of this verse in that light before, but the more I thought about it the more I realized this was true. As the dwelling place of God, I am called to be “a house of prayer”. I needed to understand exactly what this meant so I looked up the Hebrew word used here for prayer. It meant intercession, supplication, a hymn, and prayer as we know it.
According to this definition, I am supposed to be a house of intercession, supplication, a hymn, and prayer. Now, being the nerd that I am I couldn’t stop there; I had to know exactly what each of these things meant. The deeper I dug the more excited I became. The first word I looked at was intercession which meant intervening on another’s behalf. As a house of prayer, I am called to intervene or intercede on behalf of the people in my life. I am called to go to war for my loved ones through prayer! As a house of prayer, I am to be fighting on behalf of those I love and care about by carrying them before the throne of God and interceding for them!
As a house of prayer, God is calling me to be the one to “stand in the gap” (Ezekiel 22:30) for my friends and family as I intercede for them. My friend, somehow, I don’t think He means the “please bless them” prayers. I think He means for us to get serious and do battle with the enemy. I think He means some serious, Scripture quoting, tears falling, demon-slaying praying! I think He means for us to forget ourselves and actually lose ourselves as we pray hard for those He puts on our hearts! A house of prayer, a house of intercession is a place of some serious praying, serious praying that is fully aware who the real enemy is and is determined to fight with everything in its arsenal!
This leads us to the next word on our list which is supplication. Supplication means asking and begging for something in an earnest yet humble way. To me, asking and begging means to keep seeking answers and don’t give up. It makes me think of those beautiful words we all love, perseverance and endurance. It means we need to “keep on asking”, “keep on seeking”, and “keep on knocking” (Matt. 7:7) until we get some answers, keeping in mind that His ways are not the same as our ways (Is. 55:8-9) and sometimes those answers may not be what we expected. However, the point I am trying to make is that as a house of prayer, we are to keep praying and not give up!
In fact, the Scripture the Lord brought to my mind was 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray without ceasing.” We are to pray and pray, and then pray some more. We are to be as persistent in our prayers as the enemy is in his attacks against us and our loved ones! We cannot stop praying because the enemy never stops coming against us. If we want to be victorious, if we want our family to survive, we must keep praying! The enemy never stops, and neither can we! We are to earnestly, boldly, and yet humbly storm the throne room with our prayers, our supplications for ourselves and our loved ones. My friend, if you don’t think it is that urgent, look around you. People need our prayers desperately!
I don’t know if there has ever been a time when this nation, our friends, and our families needed our prayers like they do right now! Friends, we truly need to become the house of prayer that God is calling us to be! “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” Ephesians 6:12. If you will notice, Paul said we are wrestling, and if you are wrestling something that means you are in a fight with something. We are at war my friend, there is no denying it, and if we want to win, we have to learn how to become a house of prayer!
The next word on our list is the word hymn which simply means a song of praise. A house of prayer is to be a place of praise. As a house of prayer, we are to be a song of praise to our Lord and Savior. Part of being a house of prayer means that we are to be a song of praise which means that our lives should be lived with an attitude of gratitude in our heart and a song of praise on our lips. We are to actively look for God and be aware of His blessings. We are to have our eyes opened to the many, many things we have to be grateful for. To live as a song of praise means we must choose to purposefully look for reasons to be grateful; we must look for reasons to praise Him.
Each day is filled with things to be grateful for but if we are not careful, we can easily lose our focus and choose to see only our problems and difficulties. Living grateful is a choice; it is a habit that must be developed. If we are to offer our hymn of praise to God, we must choose to make it a habit of looking for the things we have to be grateful for; we must choose to keep our eyes fixed on the Problem-solver instead of on our problems. If we can learn to keep our eyes on Him then we can learn to daily offer ourselves to Him as a hymn of praise. Our very lives can be lived as a hymn of praise to Him as we learn to thank Him for His goodness and do our best to bring Him glory.
The last word on the list of definitions was the word prayer itself. I think that it means prayer not only means all of the things we have studied so far but it also means prayer- just simply talking to God. As a house of prayer, we are meant to live in constant communication with God, we are meant to continually converse with Him throughout our day. It doesn’t have to be fancy; it doesn’t have to be formal. It simply means that we should include Him as a part of every area of our lives by making everything a matter of prayer. What I mean is this. We should casually converse with Him throughout the day, including Him in every area of your day.
Throughout your day you can talk to Him. Whatever you are doing, make Him a part of it by consciously choosing to think of Him. Just like you would talk to your best friend about things, talk to Him. He wants to be a part of your life all day, not just in your “quiet time”. There is no matter too small or too insignificant to pray about. If you are struggling with your feelings, share them with Him. If you have a decision to make, ask for His guidance. When you are driving down the road, talk to Him. There are a million different ways you can be more diligent to make Him a part of your life. There are many ways to pray or converse with Him throughout the day.
There is a very good book called The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence that teaches much more in depth how you can make praying without ceasing a reality in your life. Brother Lawrence learned the beauty of keeping an open and continuous dialogue with God all day every day no matter what he was doing. I think we could all learn a little something from him. Can you imagine how amazing it would be to truly learn to be a house of prayer, to learn how to “pray without ceasing” as we learned to continually commune with God throughout our day? I don’t know about you my friend, but I have definitely been challenged by this closer look at Isaiah 56:7!
With all my heart, I desire to learn how to be a house of prayer. I want to experience the joy He describes for those who are in His house of prayer. I want the intimate communion with God that He meant for us to have with Him. I want to be a genuine house of prayer; I want to learn to intercede, make supplication, and pray. I want to learn how to live my life as a hymn of praise to Him. I want to be the house of prayer that He created me to be! I know that with His help this can become a reality in my life, so I think I need to spend some more time asking Him to help me. And then, I need to learn to listen and remember that prayer is a conversation in which two people talk.
I need to make sure that I don’t forget to allow God time to speak to my heart when I spend time in His presence. I need to hear from Him, and I confess that I often get so busy talking I forget to make time to listen like I need to. But I’m willing to learn. Too much is riding on this! I have to learn how to be a house of prayer! My enemy is ruthless and has already stolen much from me. I refuse to allow him anymore ground in my life! God, teach me to pray; teach me to battle well. Help me to stand firm and fight with every ounce of my being, trusting You to give me the victory. God, shake me, stir me, cause me to awaken to the urgency. Make me a house of prayer!!
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all saint. Ephesians 6:14-18
Grace and peace,
Katrina Douglas
