Prayer Catalysts

A catalyst is anything that encourages progress (movement or advancement).

When I go to the bathroom, and it’s so cold, sometimes it takes minutes and large sums of bravery to dip my body in that ice cold water. Boys can relate. Many used to air bathe, and that was the end.

However, I have discovered some things that get me excited to go shower. One is washing my hair. Oh how I love the viscous flow of that shampoo as it slides over my scalp causing more curls in my hair. I just find, that after washing it, the rest of the body is ready to be baptized.

My hair is a lot, that is why I don’t wash it usually, if you’re wondering…The other is having hot water! Uhhhh… It makes it so easy to bathe. It’s a great motivator. And of course, having sweet smelling bathing soap or shower gel, just makes me look forward to the next bathroom session. Bathing with mukwano bull soap or the white star brand doesn’t excite nor encourage the activity.

If I wash my hair, have bathing soap and hot water all at the same time, mehhhnnn, I can just spend hours in the bathroom enjoying each moment.

When it comes to housework, playing upbeat music or soothing worship is a good catalyst depending on the mood, or the time of day…

Today’s article is to help you discuss spiritual catalysts. Things that encourage spiritual disciplines. As I’ve already mentioned for example, music is really an essential catalyst for prayer. If it is in the background, worship melodies help with the flow in the Spirit.

Another catalyst is consecrated hours and places. I’ve found that if I’ve set apart an hour in the day to pray, and it is nearing that time, I either quicken to finish whatever errand I have, or I pause and go pray then return. There are times when God leads us to pray in unprepared hours, but having set apart times, sometimes, finds God waiting for you there, as He respects your consecration.

The places of consecration are those where you run to to be alone with God. There are places I know which have become alive enough to know what they are to me. These rooms have gained consciousnesses to know that they are portals to God’s presence. 4 out of 5 times, I have been in those rooms or places when I had sweet meditations or encounters with God.

The Holy Spirit Himself is a catalyst to prayer. When He manifests specifically through the gift of speaking in tongues, prayer ceases to be a burden. It flows. It’s broader than any language. For many people run out of prayer as soon as they run out of words. I’ve seen that it’s by tongues that a man can pray without ceasing as Jesus commanded. For if earthly words cease, that’s prayer ceasing, and yet the command was to pray without ceasing!

Company is another catalyst to prayer. There are friends I have, who two minutes into conversation with, suddenly provoke the inward man, or the inward nature. Suddenly, I find myself either declaring scripture, or praying in tongues. Because He who’s in us is one… igniting the same flame in each of us like He did in the upper room. If you don’t have such friends, then my friend, you need to find deeper friends.

There are so many justifications to this. Proverbs says He that walks with the wise, is wise. I think it’s safe as well to say, He that walks with the prayerful is prayerful! Another justification would be; iron sharpens iron… The prayerful sharpen the prayerful. The Bible doesn’t say wood sharpens iron, though iron sharpens wood. This notion only means there could be those with whom you’re at the same frequency (the iron). Then the wood are those you provoke to pray more, or seek God more, justifying the iron sharpening the wood. Notice that they however can’t encourage you to pray more, yet you encourage them to.

Peter never encouraged Jesus to pray more at any point. Rather, it was Jesus who challenged him, asking why he couldn’t watch for even an hour.

The Word of God is the last catalyst I know of. And the revelation, wisdom and understanding of it determines how we pray. The Word is a collection of prayer templates! Reading some of these provokes the inner man to prophesy through payer according to what you’ve read, creating the seen from the unseen.

The revelation, wisdom & understanding part, comes in, not as a catalyst, but the how of prayer. As one person stands on ‘ask and you shall receive,’ and is asking, waiting to receive, another is standing on ‘all His promises are yes and amen’, and so, they are giving thanks in advance for what they are to receive.

While another man is running to Jesus with leprosy, another is running on ‘whosoever shall say unto this mountain (of leprosy) be thou moved and be cast into the sea…’ One knows the authority of another person. The other knows that He shares the authority with that person! Who’s not just any person by the way, but the very son of God Himself.

Need motivates other people to pray. But I’d categorise it under the unauthorized catalysts of prayer. Fear is a motivator for others. Unauthorized I say! For if a man and a woman had communion (sex) out of fear, then we’d justify fear as a catalyst for communion with God. But it is love, by which a man and a woman purely make a child. Love is a catalyst therefore, for us to enter God’s courts to have communion, and then, have fruit, seen by men, equivalent to that, of a child in a woman’s womb, after she’s ‘prayed’ erotically.

Love, here shouldn’t be about how much we love God back or how much we sacrifice for Him that He needs to reward us openly. It’s about His love for us instead. The former was Peter, who rejected Jesus thrice. The latter was John, who at the crucifixion aftermath, was the only disciple present alongside Mary mother of Jesus.

He referred to Himself as ‘the One Jesus loved’, so that we too would take on that epithet. David killed a man so that He’d have that man’s wife. His love for God failed as he broke the law herein. But, His revelation of the reverse, saw Him restored, being entrusted with special anointed writings and songs, that have stayed relevant in every generation, which resulted from his communion in prayer, of a God who forgave Him prodigally.

So, the Word wasn’t the last catalyst, as I had mentioned. The Holy Spirit brought in love as the actual last. Seven beautiful ways for your prayer to quicken your prayer discipline, which when all practised at once, provoke tremendous results.

Hope this was insightful to you, as it was to me.

Toodeloo