Digging deep wells.
nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
‘Digging deep wells’
This is a term often used in charismatic circles to describe the act of actively remaining in the presence of God. The act of pushing past our discomforts, earthly and fleshy reluctance, to go to the deeper places of prayer and devotion.
This month I have felt the invitation from God to grow in the place of prayer to ‘dig deep wells’.
Prayer has not always been an enjoyable thing for me. There have been seasons where it has been painful to sit open before God, seasons where I sat in reluctance before God. But there are moments in prayer that have so shaped me that I cannot remember who I was before that ‘prayer time’. These are the moments that are etched on my heart, the experiences that keep me going back.
It’s like your ‘shovel’ finally hits the spring and living water flows up and out drenching everything.
Changing everything.
When we start the journey of pursuing God through prayer it can often feel like a lot of hard work on your part. But what I have learnt over the years is that He desires us to go deeper even more than we desire it for ourselves.
He desires us to desire Him, and to do so so greatly that we would follow Him into the unknown, uncharted, uncomfortable places in prayer. He desires to reveal Himself in greater ways still to those who would truly and wholeheartedly seek His face.
But there are no shortcuts and no fast-tracks to building intimacy with God through prayer.
Unlike studying the word or engaging in worship, there isn’t anywhere to hide. You can’t bury yourself in the theology of prayer whilst praying like you can when reading the word, and you can’t hide behind the words of gifted worship leaders like you can in worship. Prayer is you and God, and your soul lay bare, and I think that is one of the reasons why so many people struggle and sadly give up.
‘Prayer is hard’, ‘prayer is boring’, and ‘I don’t know what to say’ are all common things that we think even if we won’t admit it. And I am not here to say that any of those thing are untrue. The reality is that, at times, prayer feels hard; it takes discipline, effort and energy that we are unwilling to invest. Prayer can indeed feel dull to our dopamine-addicted nervous system which struggles to keep our focus on anything for an extended time. And it is real that our human words desperately fail to convey the emotions, yearning, and longings of our soul.
But all of these things do not make prayer even a tiny bit less worthwhile.
I would argue that it is precisely because of the above reasons that it is worthwhile.
Because it is hard and therefore requires discipline.
Because it is counter to our natural desires and therefore allows us the opportunity to kill our ‘flesh’ and grow in the things of the spirit
Because it highlights our limits and how desperately we need Him.
Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.
I am not super old, but I am not super young either in terms of the amount of years I have walked with Jesus. It has been 19 years of non-stop pursuit of Jesus. Not a number shared for any glory, because it is all through His grace, but a number shared as part of my evidence for the following statement.
There has been no other area of my walk with Jesus that has produced as much fruit, transformation, and vitality as my prayer life.
Worship is important, the Word is vital, community and service indispensable. But prayer is laced in and through everything. It is what brings life, purpose, and alignment to it all.
Prayer is core to our identity as children of God. It is the vital and vibrant vehicle of two-way communication between us and God, heaven and earth, spirit to Spirit. I would be as bold as to say we cannot profess to be Christians without a prayer life, and no genuinely powerful child of God exists without a vibrant prayer life.
“Prayer is to faith what breath is to life. How a man can live and not breathe is past my comprehension, and how a man can believe and not pray is past my comprehension too.” - J.C. Ryle
‘prayer is essential as breathing’ - Martin Luther
Prayer transforms song into worship, the study of text into the living breathing transformative word, hosting into Godly hospitality, and events into encounters. If we are not daily, regularly, repetitively inviting the Lord of all to speak into, breathe into, work in and work through our ‘spiritual’ activities, then they will remain just that… activities without power.
Jesus, the son of God, divine fullness of God in human form, prayed. It was a priority in His life's rhythm and work. If He prioritised prayer over sleep, over community and work, then I have yet to hear a reason that excuses us, fully human no part God finite beings, from prayer.
Oh, how did we end up here, a church that works more than we pray, a people who are busy with calendar events, conferences, rems and rems of bible study programmes but prayerless?
And hear me clearly, there is nothing wrong with working hard, studying diligently, and stewarding the work well. But there is something wrong when we have lost our priority and love for speaking to the God who we profess to do it all for.
The difference between a servant and a son is not work as both are expected to work in different ways within the family and for the family. The difference is relationship (+ authority but that is a slightly different topic). The way that a son interacts with his Father is very different from the way a servant interacts with their master.
Belonging, security, intimacy.
A son and daughter have access to not only the Father’s plans but to the Father’s heart.
Sometimes I think that we settle for far less than God is desiring to give to us. We settle for knowing His plans and purposes but we stop short of knowing His heart. He felt desires, thoughts, ideas, and longings.
We forfeit knowing His heart because we regularly forfeit prayer.
As I write this post, I am thinking about the many times Jesus referenced His actions or words to an intimate connection with the Father.
John 5:19-20 is an example of this where Jesus was challenged for healing on the Sabbath.
Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
Jesus was so closely positioned to the Father that He could see what His Father was doing and partner with it.
This is the calling of our lives, to be co-heirs with Christ, co-labourers in the work of the Kingdom, to see what the Father is doing and to partner ourselves with that.
How can we see what the Father is doing?
By investing in our time with Him through prayer, because time with the Father will allow you to know His heart and recognise His desires easily.
So, pray.
Pray with the Word,
pray in the spirit,
pray with worship,
pray in silence,
pray whilst fasting,
pray whilst dancing,
pray alone,
pray together.
Just don’t neglect to pray.
Isaiah 56:7 reminds us of God’s desire for His people. ‘For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’
We are His house, His temple, and we are called to be a house of prayer.
Don’t forfeit this intimate, supernatural life with God for a lesser onw, but dig in, dig deep, and let the springs of living water flow.
If I were to summarise my passions in 4 points they would be:
(not including the pursuit of Jesus because I think that is obvious!)
Raising powerful spirit-filled children.
Seeing people healed through community.
Awakening the church to the power of prayer.
Dancing like a child at a party wayyy past their bedtime!
Many of these things I have not yet touched upon in my writings. Mostly because I am focused on living them out and words sometimes fail me.
But when writing about prayer my words easily find anchoring on the page.
I pray that these words cause a response in your spirit that catalysts you to begin to dig deeper wells.
Fear not, I have not left you without practical steps to help you dig deeper wells. Here are a few of resources to get you started:
Spirit-filled instrumentals to support your prayer times. I have found these so helpful in ushering me into the place of prayer, also on spotify.
A community to journey out your growth through September (for subscribers of this newsletter).
Teaching on prayer that will encourage and ignite from Prayer Storm a ministry I serve regularly with and wholeheartedly endorse.
Oooo I am feeling fired up and excited. I can’t wait for this growth and shift that will come as we commit ourselves this month. Love to hear your thought and reflections, make sure you drop a comment!
Until next time,
Love, Anna x
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Thoughts this week:
Thank you Anna, I love this encouragement to dig deep wells with the Lord, because we want more of Him! I'm encouraged to pray more outside of my regular prayer times today. To practice praying without ceasing. Hope you are having a great day.
The vulnerability, truthfulness and relatability of this is needed at times like this.
No more working hard to cover what we know is the right thing.
This rings true in multiple ways; thank you so much, Anna.