“All you can do now is pray.” I have heard this statement so many times. Heck, I have SAID this statement so many time! When we say that, it’s usually means we have NOTHING else we can do. We are powerless. So, as a last ditch effort we will do what is left, pray. Can I tell you how many years I have done this?! I have since learned a little more about how prayer actually works. It’s not a hail mary throw, hoping it will make it across a court, and SWOOOOOOSH hit in the basket for the WIN! However, that’s how most of us approach it.
Prayer is getting from point A to point B. Humor me a bit. Say I have a circumstance that I need God to intervene in, or a relationship I need Him to touch. Whatever I am bringing before Him in prayer. Prayer is the vehicle that get us to the miraculous. I can go outside and sit in my car….but if I don’t turn it on it will go no where. Right? Well, if we don’t pray we get no where.
If you don’t have gas in your car, what happens? It goes no where. The Word is what fuels our prayer and feeds it to get us where we need it to go. NO WORD….No power in your prayer...you go no where. So, now we are set in our prayer. We are fueling it regularly with the Word so we can move. It doesn’t just automatically go forward, does it? NO. We have to push the gas pedal. We have to use our faith to move forward knowing that the internal spiritual structure that has been put together by the creator and designer to power the vehicle to move forward, will work. If we don’t push in faith, with the expectation of getting where we want to go, we will sit still in prayer.
HOW do we get there? I don’t know about you but before GPS I was lost! ALL THE TIME! Now, when I drive to a job, I have help getting there. Driving really was more stressful for me before GPS. The Holy Spirit is our life GPS. If we listen to him then we can make it to our ending as quickly as possible, but if we decide to take our own off road short cuts…..well, we all know how that goes.
Prayer...we are in it.…moving forward….following directions….but it’s TAKING SOOOOOOOO LONG! Anyone ever have of traffic delays? If you have ever traveled anywhere in or near Houston area, you have. Sometimes we are sitting on the highway just waiting…and waiting…AND WAITING…and we have NO IDEA WHY! It’s frustrating huh! To sit and not know why the freeway is stopped and not going like it should be when you have a destination to get to! And most of the time, it has nothing to do with us, our journey, 
or where we are going. It just happens. Do you get out of your car on the freeway and walk away? No that would be silly. Why would we abandon something so valuable just because of a traffic jam, yet so many of us do this in prayer. You wait, or if possible take a different route that the GPS shows you, but you still keep going. Delays….they just happen, in prayer and in life. If you listen to the Holy Spirit they can be avoided at times, but we have all sat there frustrated when they couldn’t be avoided. We don’t quit, we just learn to become patient in the things we have to drive through in life…. in prayer.
When I know my route, it seems so much quicker to my destination. If I have a job I go to daily or on a regular basis I know the route, the time delays, and the backroads because of my experience on that route. Same with prayer. There are certain routes we can pray into and because of our experience there, having gotten answers, been through the delays, we know how to navigate it better. I don’t know about you, but when I take a route or go to a place that I have never been before, it seems like it TAKES FOREVER! It may not be any longer then the other routes I am use to, but because it is unfamiliar to me it appears that at times I may be lost or that my destination will never get there.
GPS it’s a wonderful thing. The great think about a GPS is I don’t have to be familiar with the road, I just need to know that the GPS will get me there. I trust that this modern day technology will be accurate and take me the most efficient route. I know natural GPS is flawed but the Holy Spirit is not. He will route us the right direction to get us to where we driving in prayer. Sometimes, he takes us off the freeway to avoid delays and we don’t understand why because we can’t see the overall map and picture. Sometimes we just sit and wait through the delays. Sometimes we make a straight shot to our answered prayers on the highway of life.
If we ever want to get anywhere in life we must take the most powerful effective way. A life of prayer. 
Not a last resort, but the first approach. You wouldn’t walk to work or across the city would you? That almost sounds absurd now in days. Walking is us taking on life, our own way, without any power behind us. Walking through life is US using US with our own natural abilities to get where we want to be. Depending upon on our own two feet. That my dear, makes for a long destination to get to places. I wouldn’t get far and if I did it would take 10x’s as long! Not to mention the toll it would take on my body….no thank you. So walk or ride?
Prayer is our ride through life if we will use it, fuel it, drive it, and guide it we will make each destination we set out for.