"After they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly."   Acts 4:31

Last Thursday I crashed a big prayer party. Although I wasn't invited to The National Day of Prayer Observance in Washignton DC  (held in The Rotunda of The Capitol Building and livestreamed across the world) I decided to just walk in and see what would happen. I prayed, "God, if it's your will, let me into this thing." And God answered my prayer. Much to my surprise there was no check-in list and I breezed through security like a boss.

1.  Find a prayer "hot spot" and use it.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

We all know about wireless hot spots…you go into a coffee shop and want to know the wireless code for the hotspot so you can get online. Well, I believe that Jesus had prayer hot spots. Sure, he could pray anywhere but I believe there were places he especially liked to connect with God through prayer.

If I could get in a time machine and go back to teenaged Greg I'd tell him one thing...learn how to pray.

Sadly, it took me about four decades to begin to truly discover the power of prayer. Once I did, it felt like for the majority of my life I'd been throwing dirt clods at Satan only to discover there was a bazooka in the closet.

For the last several years I've said that if a church spends more time doing announcements than engaging in intercessory prayer during a Sunday morning worship service then something is broken. Sadly, that means something is definitely broken in most churches when it comes to prayer.

Athough this statement may send waves of guilt into the souls of many pastors it doesn't offer a practical solution to the problem. And I want to offer solutions and not just be a Monday morning quarterback regarding the Sunday morning services.

Someone once said, "Prayer changes nothing!" Of course this was a shock-value declaration that drove to a deeper point. What was it? The only thing that prayer changes is us!

"One Voice United in Prayer" is the theme for this year's National Day of Prayer. I love that!

Why? It reminds me of the words of Luke in Acts 4:31, "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6,7

Prayer

This scene from the movie "The Apostle" shows Robert Duvall playing a character named Sonny wrestling with God in prayer. I'm not sure we should ever get mad at God, but Sonny's straight-forwardness in this clip is a lesson for all of us to learn how to pour out

"Lord save me!" was Peter's short prayer when he began sinking into the waves. A water-walking Savior saved him in a mili-second. If Peter's prayer had been a syllable longer he'd have been sleeping with the fishes.

What's true of Peter is true of us. Sometimes we need to shout out