Tag Archives: connect

Can God Hear Your Voice?

Here are some simple ways you can improve your prayer life.

Written by Colin Millar on 12/02/2019

Series: Weekly Devotional

Tags: PrayerRelationshipsSalvationThankfulness


Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

James 5:16

Recently I was driving while listening to a College Student Prayer Conference Call over the speaker in my car. My youngest son, Chris, leads this Tuesday night of “College Worship with a Message” and for most of the time, it turns into 45 minutes of prayer. I’ve heard Chris pray many times before, but on this night when I heard his voice, three things happened at the same moment! 

  1. Tears of joy sprung forth from my eyes.
  2. I heard the voice of our Heavenly Father over my own voice saying: “That's my son!”
  3. God gave me inexplicable joy. The same joy in our Father experiences when we, His children cry out loud to Him in prayer. This joy felt like a drumbeat of rolling thunder through my heart, mind, and soul. 

Let’s pause and pray out loud:  

“Father, I rejoice that You love to hear my voice and heart turned to you in prayer. Please forgive me when I ignore Your presence. I commit to daily being a student in your “School of Prayer” and to cry out to you regularly. Lord, please teach me to pray.”

The best way to learn to do anything is by doing that thing, right?

Would you learn to ride a bike, play football or cook a meal by reading about how to do them? No, you would practice! Like these activities, the best way to learn how to pray is to pray. So we can be obedient by doing it. In James 5:16 we are given the commandment to “pray for one another.” I often quote Leonard Ravenhill when teaching on prayer where he says,  “Few are called to preach, but all are called to pray!” The instruction from James is addressed to every believer in Jesus. So, if you are reading this, then you are called by God to pray. 

A simple way to pray throughout your day

“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)  Right before this verse, it says, “Pray without ceasing,” which is another instruction to pray. 

Precious reader, those two simple words, “thank you,” are a secret key to virtually every person’s heart, and it can give you the opportunity you need to pray for people. Let me explain in just one instance. Whenever I board a plane, I look at the flight attendants standing in the cabin entrance in their eyes, smile and say: “I want to say thank you to you both for serving in the skies today. God bless you.” Whether it’s to your mother, a family member, a stranger, on the phone to customer service, you can say thank you to them. A very simple next step is to ask this question slowly, clearly and sincerely from your heart:

"If there was one thing I could pray now for you personally, what would it be?" 

This question has allowed me to share Jesus with so many people! A few months ago, I wanted to rent a small car, but there were none available. In America, there is a company called U-Haul, which rents big cars so people can move their belongings from one place to another. Since I could find no small cars, I had no choice but to rent a U-Haul. With a listening heart, God gave me a number of opportunities to say thank you to people and then ask them the "one thing" question.

When we work, we work, but when we pray, God works! In the next 24 hours, God brought Sharon, a gas station manager, Jake, a young man who had been asleep on the couch in the U-Haul office, and Evangelina, my bus driver at the airport, to salvation as I thanked and prayed for each of them in response to the "one thing" prayer question. 

Now, salvation does not come with every person you pray for. However, the more people you pray for, the more you will see God heal, encourage, and set free from worry.

Now, do you want more resources so you can grow in your prayer life? You can use the following: 

1. Igniting Prayer Action’s Online School of Prayer is a simple, eight-session, scripturally based teaching that brings you from a place of setting time apart for prayer to living with prayer as a part of who you are.

2. Zume Online Disciple Multiplication Training is a remarkable, life-transforming way to step into prayer-filled obedience of the Great Commission. I have just completed facilitating a small group of seven through this 10-session journey, and each one of us has grown significantly in our daily rhythm of a prayer-filled life.

Will you commit to saying an intentional "thank you" to five people a day and then asking the "one thing" question of at least two of those people a day?


Pray this week:

“Lord, let me use this lesson as a way to grow in my prayer life. Also, give me the courage to ask more the ONE THING question and share of your saving grace. Amen.” 


Let us know if you asked the "one thing" question with those around you! Connect with a caring Christian friend today.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Why Prayer Is So Important

Five reasons why prayer is the answer when life turns upside down.

Written by Janet Perez Eckles on 18/04/2017

Series: Weekly Devotional

Tags: PrayerHealingReassuranceConfidenceAnxiety


The Lord is there to rescue all who are discouraged and have given up hope.

Psalm 34:18

The doctor’s news crushed me. I squirmed on the examining chair.

“There is nothing that can be done for this retinal disease,” he said as he pulled back from examining my eyes. “No one knows how long you’ll have your sight. You need to prepare for the inevitable.”

He was right. Despite my frantic search for a cure, a few months later my vision closed in completely. Horrified, anxious and desperate, I trembled at the notion that without sight, I would not be able to care for my three small sons. I tossed awake at night questioning God.

Where was He? Why didn’t He hear my prayers as I begged for a miracle? Hope threatened to leave me.

But one day God showed up. That day a friend invited me to a Christian church, and everything changed. My eyesight wasn’t healed, but my heart was. I faced my need to know Christ. I realized the emptiness that ruled my life was because I had prayer all wrong. I had asked and asked some more. But prayer required something more, something that made our communication powerful. And that involved listening.

To my relief, after months of soaking my soul in His Word, I added listening to my prayer time. And through that prayer relationship with Him, He revealed these five promises to calm my soul:

1. He will transform.

God was about to transform me as I invited Christ to be my Lord of all. And through Him, God made me righteous. He saw my tears, knew my desperation, and heard my cries. “If you obey the Lord, he will watch over you and answer your prayers.” Psalm 34:15

2. He reassures.

When loneliness tried to come in, God reassured me I wasn’t alone. His army of angels would stand with me, by me, and around me. “If you honor the Lord, his angel will protect you.” Psalm 34:7

3. He strengthens.

Those days when I lacked the emotional strength to be a mom and wife, God’s promise to provide soothed me. “You rule with strength and power. You make people rich and powerful and famous.” 1 Chronicles 29:12

4. He guards.

When tempted to succumb to anxiety, worry or fear, God’s instructions were clear and beautifully reassuring. “Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.” Philippians 4:6-7

5. He answers.

When I needed comfort to face a lifetime of blindness, or in small things like sorting my sons’ clothes or finding rides to doctors’ appointments, I trusted. I believed. And I was confident that God would help me because…“We are certain that God will hear our prayers when we ask for what pleases him. And if we know that God listens when we pray, we are sure that our prayers have already been answered.” 1 John 5:14-15

God’s healing came, not through my physical eyesight, but through the spiritual eyes of my heart. I saw how prayer is a sweetly personal conversation with Him. It’s the direct connection between me, a mere human with the divine Lord. And it’s the channel through which I receive all that’s good in order to bring peace to my nights and joy to my days.


Pray this week:

Father, I praise you because you heard my sobs at night. You saw my struggles as you’re aware of my inadequacies. And I praise you because our conversation-filled prayer gives me the confidence to believe that there is no battle I face that you won’t win for me. And there is no struggle I encounter that you won’t bring victory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member