Consecration: Prayer

You will grow and excel in prayer to the degree that you give yourself to it. If you don’t invest time in prayer, you won’t reap the benefits of prayer. Some of the answers we seek aren’t lying on the surface. The answers we seek are not apparent. Because of that, it may require that we dig deeper into prayer to unearth our answers.

For one who speaks in an [unknown] tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands or catches his meaning, because in the [Holy] Spirit he utters secret truths and hidden things [not obvious to the understanding] (1 Corinthians 14:2 AMPC).

When you are in need of wisdom or direction in life, the answers you seek are a secret. The next series of steps for your life, business, or ministry may be hidden from you, or as 1 Corinthians 14:2 says not obvious to your understanding. When you arrive at a problem and the answers you need are beyond you, that might be a good time to consecrate and set aside additional time to pray.

When you set aside time to pray, you are strategically giving yourself to pray for the purpose of moving further into the presence of God. Clearly you haven’t found your answer on the level you’ve been praying on. Consecration says, “I’m ready to venture out a little further, and I’m willing to inconvenience myself to do it.” This may call on you to get up earlier in the morning or stay up later at night. It may call on you to take a trip alone and get into prayer for a period of days.

Sometimes when I’m traveling in ministry, I will deliberately not travel by plane. Sure I could get to a particular location in two or three hours. But if I drive, I can spend hours in my car praying. I can’t begin to estimate the amount of time I’ve spent praying in the car. Most of that praying was in other tongues.

A plan (motive, wise counsel) in the heart of a man is like water in a deep well, but a man of understanding draws it out (Proverbs 20:5 AMP).

The wisdom of God is in your spirit like a well. The directions of God are in your spirit like a well. The next series of steps you need to take for your career or your family is in your spirit like a well. But you must draw your answer up out of your heart—out of the deep waters of your heart. God is not going to draw it out for you. Why? Because He gave you a bucket. Prayer is the bucket!

When you drop the bucket of prayer into your heart, you can draw on everything that heaven has to offer you. You are putting a demand on wisdom, counsel, might, strategy, and creativity. You pull the plan of God for the future into your present reality as you pray. Praying in tongues specifically enables you to pray concerning the unknown. I like to say it this way—the first place you encounter your answer is in the prayer place. Your answer actually escapes your lips in unknown tongues. You are praying out next steps, ideas, and innovative shifts when you pray in tongues.

If you are going to stretch yourself in prayer, you have to do more than set aside time to pray. You have to push yourself to pray out further and longer. Most Christians can’t pray in tongues for an extended period of time. They get to about five minutes and start checking their watches or yawning. Some even go as far as to check their social media. They don’t know how to set their mind to pray and keep it set long enough to pray out beyond themselves.

I’ve found that when I decide to pray for a period of time, my mind acts like an unruly toddler. When my sons were toddlers, we had to teach them how to sit and stay seated. Teaching them how to take control of themselves and sit quietly was exhausting. It has taken years to show them how to act appropriately in church, doctor’s offices, restaurants, and the like. But I don’t have the option of not teaching them. If I don’t teach them, their behavior will invite consequences into their lives that they don’t want.

It’s the same with your mind. If you don’t set your mind and teach it to yield to God, your mind will take you places you don’t want to go and invite things and people into your life that have no business there. Consecrating in prayer trains your mind to yield to what is right by giving preference to your spirit. When you discipline yourself to pray in tongues, it’s training your mind to make way for what is spiritual. Initially your mind will give you a little trouble because it likes being in control. But if you keep setting your mind, eventually your mind and body will obey your decision to pray out further.

Setting your mind looks like you rescuing your mind from making a grocery list while you’re trying to pray. It’s you grabbing a scripture for your mind to meditate on while you pray in tongues. One of my favorite scriptures to meditate on when I’m praying like this is John 7:38, where Jesus says that “out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” He is talking about the move of the Spirit through us. So when I’m praying in tongues, I’ll hold that scripture in my thinking as I pray. The King James version of the Bible says it this way: “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” My internal dialog sounds like this:

Thank You, Lord, that out of my belly will flow rivers of prayer.

Yeah, Lord, that’s right. Out of my belly. Out of my very own belly.

From inside me, from my spirit

Will spring forth life. LIFE! Thank You for that life!

Life that heals.

Life that resorts .

Life that makes me whole.

Life that brings answers and strategies.

Life that will cause what You said to be in me!

That’s how I begin to meditate on the verse as I pray. I break apart each piece of the verse. As I do, it gives my mind an assignment. It introduces my mind to the flow of God in prayer. It focuses my mind on what my spirit is doing, while not letting it get in my way.

This will help you push yourself out beyond your limits in prayer. Challenge your limits. If you can only pray for ten minutes, push yourself to fifteen. If you can only pray for twenty minutes, push yourself to pray out further for thirty minutes. Consecration isn’t a destination, it’s a journey. We should all be moving out further in prayer. You are either shifting or drifting.