Powerful Prayer Tip – Be Quiet!

God has shown me something new in prayer. I have treasured it in my heart, and want to share it with you.

Welcome to Powerful Prayer Tip Tuesday!

I especially love, love, love when God gives me a new scripture in my prayer experience that will continue to be a guiding light in the future.  Prayer is such a mystery sometimes, isn’t it?  Which is why I hold tightly to any bit of wisdom God endows.

I had been praying for something specific for the past five months.  When I began, I felt led to pray like the persistent widow in Luke 18.  Day and night, I brought my injustice before the Lord, asking Him to restore me.

Then, one day, I came across this scripture:

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.           Lamentations 3:26

I immediately felt like the Lord was telling me to just be quiet now in regards to this prayer request.  I did not know if He meant to stop talking to others about it or stop nagging Him about it, so I did both.

This scripture is about hoping in the Lord, “of things unseen, future, difficult, and yet possible,” and waiting “for the salvation of the Lord; for temporal deliverance from outward evils and present afflictions, and for spiritual and eternal salvation” according to Gill’s Exposition.

I had hoped, and now I was waiting…quietly—no easy task for me!!!  But, with God’s help, I persevered in this quiet space for two weeks, then the answer came, and I was restored.  More than likely God had answered my prayer when He illuminated Lamentations 3:26 to me.  And since He had answered it, just maybe He wanted an early excuse from me.

Since I was not sure whether or not God wanted me to be quiet verbally or quiet in spirit, it gave me time to evaluate why He may be saying either one to me.  Here are some of my thoughts about being silent…

VERBALLY

• When I spoke about my injustice with others, I found myself placing more value on the infringement than God’s power to correct it.
• The more I spoke about it, the more I thought about what I had lost, and began to obsess over it
• The more I spoke about it, the more upset I got with God for allowing it.

SPIRITUALLY

• By stopping myself from praying about it as God requested, it taught me more about trusting God
• My silence in this matter during prayer helped to better enjoy my confidence in the Lord
• The request for silence really tested my ability to be obedient to what I believed to be God’s will.

God used this scripture to reassure me in my prayer life.  It settled my spirit, and brought out the best of me during the wait.  Believe me when I say that I have had some ugly waits in the past.  What about you?  Is there a prayer petition that God’s Spirit is prompting you to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord?

Pray on…shhh…quietly!

~gina

p.s.  I am guest posting over at Holley Barrett’s Testimony Tuesday today, sharing How I Fell Out of Love with the Other Man.

Dear Guest,

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Award-winning author Gina Duke is a wife, mom and the Director of Women’s Ministry at her local church. With a B.S. in Organizational Leadership, she is able to bring a clear word for authentic Christian living. Through her book, “Organizing Your Prayer Closet: A New and Life-Changing Way to Pray” (Abingdon Press), she imparts 1 Peter 4:7 with the gift of structured prayer journaling. If you would like to schedule Gina to speak on prayer or host a prayer journaling workshop, click here for more information. You may also follow her on Twitter and Instagram @TheGinaDuke.

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