From the archives of Oral Roberts
What do you do when things go wrong? Where do you turn? I thank God we can turn to Him in prayer and say, “God, I need Your help.” That’s one of the greatest things about our Lord. He knows exactly what’s in our heart. And when we talk to Him out of our heart, He hears us.
I pray as if I am talking to another person, because when I pray, I really am talking to God. The main thing about prayer is that it’s a desire coming out of your heart and going toward God. I pray as I go about my work. I talk to Him anytime.
A prayer is not always spoken in words, however. Sometimes it is a thought with such deep feeling that words cannot be found to express it. At times like this, praying in the Spirit can enable us to talk to God from the deepest levels of our being, from our spirit, through a language we have never learned with our mind. A new language… a “heavenly language”… a prayer language.
There are other times when we must go to a solitary place and get alone with God and talk to Him and tell Him the desires of our heart and thank Him for answering our prayers and supplying our needs. But we can pray at any time or place. Prayer is constant communion between us and God, and Luke 18:1 tells us, “Men ought always to pray.”
Prayer is a time of going to God with our needs and asking for His help. It can also be a time to worship Him, to confess our sins and receive His forgiveness. And it can be a time to intercede for others, to ask God’s help for their needs. Through prayer we can begin to see the way God sees, hear with the ears of God, and feel with the sensitivity of the Holy Spirit. A consistent prayer life is a key to the solid, mature walk of a disciple of Christ.