[countmeworthy]

Originally Posted by Trapped

Lee condemns prayers where you bring your situation to the Lord and ask Him for help. He condemns "heal my son who is sick" prayers. There is a portion where Lee talks about coming to the Lord and waiting in silence and then tentatively asking for permission to pray, and then only praying what the Lord would like us to pray.

I don't know the whole extent of his teaching on prayer. But being around people who pray I see the prayer pendulem swing way on the other side. Don't beat me up or stone me here. My observation is there is way, way too much prayer on healing. Not that it is wrong. IT IS NOT!! For the record, my body has been riddled with RA for 18 lonnng, lonng years so I know about healing prayers etc. From James 5:16b pray for one another so that you may be healed.

I will give more of my thoughts in a bit.

I have come to appreciate more the "standard" Christian way of praying, say as a pastor ends his sermon by saying "let's pray" and then he prays with the utterance that helps the audience, as opposed to the prayer-cadence in the LC's followed by an amen after every sentence.

Personally, I don't like the 'standard' Christian way of praying. The pastors / preachers are not teaching people how to pray. I have a small intimate bible study group of friends. I try to help them spiritually and practically speaking. Not boasting here, just letting you know what I do practically, I text, call, make meals for those who are sick..worst than ME! We have game nights every other week which includes munchies. We are friends not just 'congregants'. This bible study group which is made up of about 8-12 people are my 'church' family.

After every weekly study, we pray and every prayer is about healing...healing for our group and for their loved ones.

What that type of prayer does is drags, or at least splits, the pray-er's focus to being on the saints around them rather than on the Lord Himself.

I learned how to 'pray read' God's Word back in the day. While I don't 'pray read' like we did back in the 70's, I pray God's Word all the time. I have a 'funny' and I may have mentioned it here in past posts. It is John 10:10b I AM COME THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY.

On physically challenging days, I have yelled at the LORD 'YOU SAID YOU CAME THAT I WOULD HAVE LIFE AND HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY! WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THIS??!!! After my body relaxes and settles down, I apologize to God for yelling at Him. I have a one on One conversation and all is good.

Most of my prayers consist of Thanksgiving, Praise, Worship, Honor, Glory and Blessing the LORD with all my heart.

When I am stressed out, I pray FATHER. MAY YOUR PERFECT WILL BE DONE IN THIS MATTER. Thank You for listening to the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. Bless Your Holy Name. Praise You Dear Lord Jesus. etc..

When I am discouraged, I pray 'Thank You Lord You will never leave me or forsake me. You began a MOST EXCELLENT WORK in me and You are going to complete it. That is Your promise to me and I am holding You to it! Thank You..Bless You.. Praise You Lord Jesus.

When I need guidance and counseling, help, I address God, the HOLY SPIRIT.
"Holy Spirit, I need You to help me find my keys.. help me get a good parking place... I need guidance, understanding etc.. He always comes through!! I then Thank Him. Thank You Holy Spirit for helping me find my keys or whatever it is I have asked Him.

The best prayer I have been 'enjoying' though is praying 'Father God. MAY YOUR PERFECT WILL BE DONE IN THIS MATTER! Wow.. what peace I get from praying like this!!

Having said that, I have not yet gone to a prayer meeting of a non-LC church, but will do so soon. I never found the LC way of praying helpful for me.

All of the prayer meetings I attended when I was going to 'church' were praying in 'tongues'. Here is how it went: The pastor would tell us we were going to pray for certain things or people, our country etc. He held a bell and then would say "For the first 15 minutes we are going to pray for people's finances. START! Then everyone would break out in 'tongue' praying. It was AWFUL imho! You think the LC way of praying was not helpful??!! Wait till you are around 'tongue praying' people!!

Then at the end of the 15 minute segment, the pastor would ring the bell signaling everyone to stop 'praying' and then he would announce the next concern to pray about. START! And everyone would burst out once again in 'tongue praying' for 15 minutes till the pastor would ring the bell.

This went on for an hour. Then the prayer meeting would end. I went to these 'prayer meetings' for about 2 months until I could NOT STAND IT any longer!

Hope you find a great prayer meeting that suits your liking!
At my bible study group, we pass around a prayer journal. People write down prayers ... mostly healing prayers. Then the facilitators pray over the requests. They start like this 'GOD, we pray for so and so to be healed from cancer. We pray O God for so and so who has a heart condition. O God so and so needs help financially.. O God help them in the Name of Jesus.
And we all say 'AMEN'.

The reality is, Jesus is the king who sees the needs of the people, empathizes with their weakness, stops to heal the pain of someone most of us wouldn't give a second glance to. The Lord WANTS us to bring everything, big and small, to Him.

This is TRUE. The LORD supplies all of our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19