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The Power of Simple Prayer: How to Talk with God about Everything
by Joyce Meyer

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Just as God shared His plans with Abraham, He will share things with you - His heart, His desires, His purposes and intentions - when you are His friend. He will give you understanding and insight into what is happening in your life and tell you what to do about it. He will lead you and help you be prepared for the future. If you are God's friend, you do not have to be caught off guard or ambushed by your circumstances. You can be informed and ready - because you are a friend of God. He may not reveal everything you would like to know exactly when you would like to know it, but He will give you understanding as you patiently trust Him.

You may be asking, "How do I get to be God's friend?" According to John 15:15, you already are. In this verse, Jesus said to His disciples, "I have called you My friends...." If you are a follower of Jesus, you are a modern-day disciple and you are His friend. As is the case with any friendship, you can be a casual friend or you can be a close, intimate personal friend. Your friendship with God grows and develops just as your friendships with other people grow and develop. Just as a natural friendship requires time and energy to develop, so does your relationship with God.

One of the best ways to ensure a deepening friendship with God is to have a heart that wants to obey Him.

One of the best ways to ensure a deepening friendship with God is to have a heart that wants to obey Him. When our hearts are pure, tender toward His leading and eager to respond obediently, we are in a terrific position to experience God's friendship. I do not mean that we must be doing everything right or that we try to be perfect all the time; I simply mean that we are not purposefully disobedient, rebellious, hard-hearted, or always trying to see what God will let us get away with. I mean that we willingly put His desires before our own desires because we love Him and we trust Him as our friend - and we know that what He wants is always best for us anyway.

As you grow in your friendship with God, never forget that your relationship is based on who He is and not on what He can do for you. Keep seeking His presence, not His presents; keep seeking His face, and not His hand. You must know that one of the hindrances to a vibrant, maturing friendship with God is allowing ourselves to focus on the benefits of friendship with God instead of focusing on Him as our friend. As human beings, we do not appreciate finding out that certain people want to be our friends because we have an ability to get them something they want; we feel valued when we know people want to be friends with us simply because of who we are and just because they actually like us - the same principle applies with God.

Friendship Breeds Boldness

When we begin to understand our friendship with God and see ourselves as His friends, our prayers become more Spirit-led, more faith-filled, and much bolder. Jesus told a story in Luke 11, immediately after He taught His disciples to pray using what we call the Lord's Prayer. We can surmise that He was using the story to illustrate His lesson on prayer. He said: "Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and will say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves [of bread], for a friend of mine who is on a journey has just come, and I have nothing to put before him; and he from within will answer, Do not disturb me; the door is now closed, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and supply you [with anything]? I tell you, although he will not get up and supply him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his shameless persistence and insistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs" (Luke 11:5-8).

Notice that the man who needs bread only gets it "because of his shameless persistence and insistence." We will only "shamelessly persist" with our friends - because friendship makes us bold, and the more we grow and progress in our friendships, the bolder we can be. Through the writer to the Hebrews, God invites us to "come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16, NKJV).

We are not bold with people we barely know. For example, let's say that Dave and I go to a restaurant for dinner and have a server named John. When John approaches our table for the first time, he introduces himself to us. Dave does not say, "Nice to meet you, John. This is my wife, Joyce, and she needs a ride to work next Thursday morning. Would you mind taking her?" We are friendly to our server, but we are not in the kind of friendship with him that would give us the boldness to ask him for a favor of that nature.

Because John's job is to wait on us, I would not hesitate to ask him for extra lemon or salad dressing on the side. But because we are not friends, I would never dream of asking him to give me a ride to work next Thursday while my car is being serviced. On the other hand, I would ask a true friend to take me to work. Even if I had to be there at five o'clock in the morning, I know I have certain friends who would be glad to take me simply because they are my friends - and I would be bold enough to ask them because of our relationship.

© 2007 by Joyce Meyer

About the Author

JOYCE MEYER has been teaching the Word of God since 1976 and in full-time ministry since 1980. She is the bestselling author of more than fifty inspirational books, including How to Hear from God, Knowing God Intimately, and Battlefield of the Mind. She has also released thousands of teaching cassettes and a complete video library. Joyce's Enjoying Everyday Life radio and television programs are broadcast around the world, and she travels extensively conducting conferences.