God showed me something about prayer in my crosstraining class. What? You think He doesnt talk to people in their crosstraining class? I think I am closest to goin home to Him while Im trying to push myself to run, lift, jump…you get the picture. Im too old for this stuff. Seriously, my trainer was s howing us how to lift weights. She demonstrated that in order to lift weight safely you have to practice good form. She had us lift the bar with no weight on it and learn the correct steps and positions for lifting. The key was to keep the bar in contact with your legs all the way up as you lift. If you try to lift it without touching your body as you pull it up you could hurt your back. The moment you begin to lift it over your shoulders was important too. You had to do it a certain way, taking advantage of the momentum as you came up to get under the bar for the final thrust up. What does this have to do with prayer? The heavy lifters in prayer, we call them the prayer warriors, have spent years practicing how to use their faith to lift heavier and heavier things in prayer. They have built confidence that God will hear and answer them over time and practice. Why do we see things that are frightening, sad, unjust or wrong and not go straight to prayer, asking God to fix it? We arent sure we can “lift” it. We arent confident that we carry the prayer power to see the thing change. Just as in weight lifting, the heavier the weight in prayer the closer we need to carry it to our heart. Jesus did every miracle being “moved by compassion.” We gain the ability to handle weightier, more difficult information in prayer by practicing- like Nike says- “just do it”. Hebrews 5: 11 starts by saying that God wants to tell us lots of things but we have become hard of hearing. Time to grow up and be the adults who eat solid food and not the babies who only can handle milk. It ends by saying that ” solid food is for the mature, who by practice, have trained their senses to discern good and evil.” Lets pray more about everything. Lets take everything that doesnt seem right to God instead of just assuming some things will never change. Lets not let one opportunity go by without breathing in and out what God is saying to us. Pretty soon the things He tells us to pray for will have true weight- we wont just be lifting the bar anymore! Paul said, I dont want you to be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Hebrews 6:12 He is grooming us to be the next prayer warriors!