On Constant and Earnest Prayer

To understand the importance of constant and earnest prayer I imagine God as the conductor of the greatest orchestra in existence. Not only is He the conductor, He's also the composer and the lead violinist - He's that good.

I'm the Conductor's adopted son and He has personally taught me to play the violin. My greatest aspiration in this world is to play along with His orchestra BUT before He let's me, He asks two questions: "have you practiced?" and "are you in tune?"

To be practiced, I must have knowledge. Bible study, verse memorization, theology, wisdom, etc - lots of people have these; lots of people who never get to play in God's orchestra. The second thing is the most important - I must be tuned. As any musician will tell you, knowing every note of a song backwards, forwards and upside down makes no difference if you're out of tune. Yoyo Ma, Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Beethoven, Vivaldi, or John Paul Jones, they all sound equally horrible when they're out of tune. Prayer is tuning. It's getting yourself in line with, on key  with, on the same wavelength as God. When we spend time - a lot of time - in prayer we are getting ourselves in tune with God's desires. We're setting our hearts on Him and finding out how He wants to play this song. Psalm 37:4 , when we find our delight in the Lord (by spending time with him, listening, asking and paying attention to His answers, tuning in to Him), He gives us the desires of our hearts; pay close attention to the wording of that, He does not give us what our hearts desire (e.g. if I want a million bucks, He doesn't give me a million bucks), He gives our hearts their desires. In other words, through constant and earnest prayer God changes what our hearts desire. He makes His desires our desires.

He wants to play this song in B-flat. We tune to B-flat. The song sounds great because we're in tune (and practiced).