Your Powerful Prayers (Bethany House, 2016)
Susie Larson – radio talk show host, national speaker, and author- wrote Your Powerful Prayers: Reaching the Heart of God with a Bold and Humble Faith in 2016. At the outset, Ms. Larson stresses that Jesus wants you to be comfortable with, yet undone by, His great love. For God’s love and acceptance form an essential connection with prayer. As a result, God invites you into a back-and-forth dialogue and an adventure of faith and obedience. Therefore, what you say and pray about your disappointments deeply matters. Because your words reflect what you believe to be true about God and about yourself.
In addition, the author notes, heartaches and unfulfilled desires often skew our perception. Thus, we keep our thinking small. Most importantly, it matters deeply how we steward our perspective, especially when God delays giving us what our heart’s desires. So Ms. Larson encourages us to remember this important, immovable truth: we’re heirs and children of God; He deeply loves and profoundly cares for us. As a result, when we find ourselves praying and pleading from underneath our circumstances, it’s time to remind our souls of His love. And we must develop a lifestyle of listening to God so that we know our next steps.
Furthermore, Ms. Larson exhorts, you’re most powerful when you pray and most influential when you’re in step with God Almighty. Hence, walking step by step with the Holy Spirit enable His desires to be your desires. Also, God’s promises remain as potent and powerful as ever. Thus, you pray with passion, boldness, humility, and faith. This posture, in turn, keeps Satan from turning lies into truth, no matter how high he gets in the face of your fears. As heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, you’re gifted with the privileges of His presence, promises, and power. Perhaps, Susie suggests, it’s time to reframe your promises in the light of God’s power. Rather than react to angst, respond to the Lord’s direction.
In conclusion, Ms. Larson underscores that we must recognize the difference between expectation and expectancy. Briefly, Susie equates expectation with premeditated disappointment. In contrast, she defines expectancy as the tenacious belief that your powerful prayers matter. Jesus wants us in His presence expectant and full of faith. And persevering prayer involves the gritty and supernatural- grabbing hold of promises that defy our circumstances. Ms. Larson offers these words of hope:
“May we . . . walk the narrow road of holiness, humility, perseverance, and expectancy, because we know that our posture, our perspective, and . . . prayers make all the difference in the world.”
