FAITH CAPSULE: What is prayer mean to you?

Psalm 139

How is your prayer before God?
Prayer is a personal communication that is a petition addressed to God. 
Communicating with God can be verbal or non-verbal.
Prayer is in the form of supplication, adoration, praise, contrition (sincere remorse), or thanksgiving. 
Prayer by meditating before God should be with understanding. 
Prayer is also a devotion that can be done either public or private.
Bishop David Oyedepo of the Winners Fellowship once describes prayer as: “Prayer is like a labor room where undeniable proofs are given birth to.” 
Prayer is indeed labor and, when it is actively engaged, it delivers undeniable miracles. 
Prayer with patience will answer as the antidote for suffering.
At the time of the suffering of Job, prayer with patience (communication with God) was continual. 
The Bible encourages all, “Is anyone suffering let him pray” (James 5:13). Give self to prayer as a way of lifestyle with continual communication with God in every moment of life, the evidence of not ignoring the nearness of God to all man.
Prayer always demands earnest engagement (serious intention, purpose, or effort). 
The seriousness, which prayer demands is evident in the testimony of how Elijah prayed for rain. James 5:17-18 “Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit” Elijah prayed earnestly (he prayed with seriousness and purpose).  
Is your prayer with seriousness to gain the attention of a man?
Jesus, our Lord, and savior was not exempted from earnest praying. He was on a praying ground when His betrayals came to arrest him. Luke 22:44 records earnest prayer in the labor of Jesus: “And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” 
Are you striving to pray laboriously or to pray lazily? 
The prayer of Jesus was in sweat like drops of blood falling, the evidence of laborious prayer. 
Are you expecting to engage in prayer differently from the way of God to get a result? 
Prayer that is labor is seeking God diligently to be rewarded by God. (Hebrews 11:6). 
Prayer is labor that builds up before God with answers as hedges like a wall for protection gained to be unaccessible for enemies.
For example, the constant prayer of Job over his household answered as hedges which denies the accessibility of Satan for his evil act. 
The Bible records the complaint of Satan before God, after failure not to do evil for Job: “Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.” (Job 1:10) With the prayer of labor that is continual, build-up hedges the protection of God. 
Just like King David, let prayer be your lifestyle and be known by God for hedges of protection. (Psalm 139:5)

Prayer for today: Ask to be enabled to increase strength and understanding in prayer.