BENEFITS OF EXTENDED PRAYERS 

When I first started learning to pray, I learned by scriptures and by listening to those who were schooled in prayer. Then I heard this prayer chant “Upon me is the spirit of prayer and supplication”. So, every time I struggled to pray, I would declare that upon me was the spirit of prayer and supplication and it worked every single time. Surely, the spirit of prayer and supplication cannot be the devil. Surely, there must be special grace to pray.

Zechariah 12:10 “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem. They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as for an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as for a firstborn son who has died.

There is indeed a spirit of grace and prayer it turns out as you can see. The big question then would be, Why would anyone want to keep praying when they are tired of praying? Prayer has benefits. Extended prayers have benefits. Sacrificial prayer has benefit. Intercessory prayer has benefits. Today, I will stick to what we have already started regarding extended prayers

Extended prayers are prayers that take longer than your quick snack-break prayers. So, if you snack on 2-minute prayers, then 15 minutes will feel extended to you and that’s welcome. 

Why would God go out out of the way to give us grace for prayer if prayer was not important? If all God wanted to do was answer the prayer, then any prayer would have worked. I personally believe in prayer therapy i.e prayer can regulate your nervous system, confront your trauma, rewrite your internal stories, rewire your neural pathways and change your self-talk.

Does it happen in one day of praying? Absolutely not! I believe it happens over intensive, extensive and compounded praying. Every time I pray, I deposit something into my life that alters me a little bit. Sometimes, it manifests as physical, and tangible answers. Other times, it manifests as the few benefits listed below.

1️⃣ Extended prayers force you to stop pretending: many times, you come to God put together because everyone you see in church is put together. The music is loud enough to drown out your internal thoughts and your neighbour smiles too much for you to truly cry on some days.

With extended prayers though, you exhaust the theatrics. You realise that God’s mercy comes or none of this counts. You are stripped of pretense. For me, I have found that my tears are buried deep beneath my performance metrics and sometimes, only after I have exhausted all the grammar do I really get to the thing that is hurting and annoying.

Extended prayers have done for me what no journalling experience has done. In fact, as a chronic writer, I have found my writing is dishonest until I have come out of prayer.

2️⃣ Extended prayers settle your nervous system: pretending whether with yourself or with others over works your nervous system as you are alert someone might discover that you are false. Even if that pretense is not deliberate, it is still a response to feeling unsafe, and your nervous system knows this is not congruent. Therefore, you do not rest, trust, lean in, enjoy or stay present.

In extended prayers, you are forced to become still. If you have struggled with insomnia, you should try sitting down in prayer until you feel still. Say what you need to say to God, keep quiet, turn on a worship song (whatever genre works for you but I find songs with loud drums can distract me here) and sit down still until you start to question why you are sitting down then sit down past that feeling.

One song on repeat is a powerful tool for calming the mind because your processing mind switches off as it is not analysing too much after a while of hearing the same pattern. Think of it as turning yourself off or like putting a child to sleep with white noise.

In our loud, crowded, marketplace, content creating world, our senses are overstimulated, and clocking out/numbing is how we attemt to self-regulate but that is not what you need. You need stillness and presence to regulate. Extended prayer enforces that regulation

Isaiah 30:15 English Standard Version says it this way
For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,

3️⃣ Extended prayers give you time to hear God: when you have said all the things that are important to you and you are sure God heard you, you are more open to hearing if God has something new to say. 

This week, I had one of those and a question came up in my heart “Lord, what is my selling point?” The answer I received threw me completely off because it was something I had never publicly placed emphasis on. Think of this as excavation that allows God to fill you with Himself.

4️⃣ Extended prayers purifies you: where your shorter prayers are concerned with your daily needs, sitting down long enough to hear God, invites you into deeper matters of holiness, the church, the will of God on the Earth, the glory and pleasure of God in every matter and the significant position you hold in God’s agenda. 

This both humbles and purifies you. Yet, the implication of this experience is that you will rise in authority both spiritually and in courage, physically. If you struggle with impostor syndrome, low self-esteem, and feelings of unworthiness, this is the benefit you want to capitalise on. 

2Cor.3.18 – But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

If you behold the Holy God, you will be Holy. If you behold the merciful God, you will become merciful. Yet, you do not know what to behold per time until it is revealed to you by the Spirit of God who searches the deep things of God and makes them known.

5️⃣ Extended prayers bring you into clarity and action: when God’s spirit moved upon the waters in Genesis, a word of power proceeded and got the job done. When you stay in stillness and God strips the limits off you, you always come out with an ability to EXECUTE the work He gives.

Whatever the work whether it’s resting more, praying more, leading, cutting off toxic people, quitting and addiction. Whatever it is, power comes out of you to execute it. You get WISDOM & POWER. I do not know about you but I am tired of God telling me what He wants to execute and I feel powerless to execute it. So, I need to understand the strategy for execution per time by asking the God who made the plan for the Earth.

There are things God wants to save your righteous soul from but you must be willing to be quiet and and believe God that this quietness will produce power. Power must happen in you to come out. You may need power to be still, power to beat down anxiety, power to get married this year, power to make wealth, power to come out of traumatising situations or a combination of all of them. That power comes with abiding not in visiting God’s presence. Now, abide!