My Journey in Prayer
In this episode, Dr. Jim continues his “My Journey” series and shares how God patiently inspired and taught him how to pray. Hear how God brought him from occasional, obligatory prayer to a consistent and powerful prayer life. Let you own heart be stirred to meet with God through this helpful testimony!
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Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Deltona, Florida, where our War of Special Forces team is right in the midst of a week of War of Special Forces here at Deltona Christian School.
We’ve had the privilege of being here many times over the last couple decades, and it’s great to be back. They’ve expanded, have a new campus for the high school, and that’s where we are this week. Looking forward to the opportunity here to reach out to this part of town and trusting God will work.
If you think of it and listen to this podcast soon after its release, you can certainly pray for us this week that God will meet with us in a wonderful way.
Well, I’ve been on a series on My Journey and appreciate those of you that have been with it, just some biographical sketches of my life and different things God has taught me. Certainly anybody who gets into their older years certainly recognizes that they have lived their Christian life very imperfectly, but there are things God has taught us, things we’ve learned.
And many times you wish you could almost go back and know what you’ve learned earlier, but that certainly isn’t the way it is. But one thing you can do is encourage young people that are younger than you with things and truths that have particularly been very help to youーmuch a help to you in your journey. And that’s the series, My Journey, just trying to encourage young people to walk with God.
My burden is that this generation gets a hold of really walking with God and having power with God early in life, so that they can impact those around them and impact our culture in a day when we certainly see culture moving away from God at alarming rates. And certainly, it is a more pagan culture than it has ever been.
And young people listening to me, you are facing some things I didn’t face in my youthーbut hey, God’s equal to it. And certainly the Apostle Paul lived in a pagan culture, and the Word of God gives us much encouragement in influencing a culture with the Gospel, that is really either neutral to the Gospel, many timesーmost of the time probablyーanti-Gospel.
Well anyway, today I’d like to deal with my journey in prayer, and that’s certainly an extensive subject. I’m sure several years from now I’ll feel like I didn’t know anything right now.
Sometimes I tell people, “You know, I look back at 10 years ago and think to myself, ‘I didn’t know anything.’” Well, I knew something, but you know, the point is: I know more nowー10 years later. And grateful for what God teaches us; how He impacts us; how He stirs us with truth, and becomes a part of our whole philosophy, our theology of life.
But prayer is one of those journeys. I would assume that early in life I began to understand the importance of prayer. My dad would have men’s prayer meeting at Marquette Manor Baptist Church, and as a boy I often would go on Saturday morning and hear those men pray, then we’d go off to breakfast.
And I knew that prayer was important. Obviously, it was not a major part of my life. I was young; I wasn’t rebellious, but I had not yet made prayer a priority in my life.
I also had the great influence of my grandmother, who was a remarkable prayer warrior. One of probably, one of the greatest prayer warriors ever knownーmaybe that’s not the way to put it, but she was in touch with God.
As a little boy, I remember sometimes even wanting to avoid her presence, though I dearly loved her. BecauseーI realized now, it was the presence of Godーand even as a little kid, when you’re not right with God…boy, the presence of God cuts deep.
And boy, Grandma would get you though, and said, “Sit next to me Jimmy.” And she’d open that Bible, often with tears, tell me what the Lord had taught her. She’d pray for me…boy I’m telling you, ushered me into the presence of God. And I always knew that God was real, and Jesus was real because He was so real to my grandmother and to my parents. And I’m grateful for that, that influence early in my life.
My grandmother’s prayers were remarkable. I remember when my brother was struggling spiritually after we moved from Colorado. Now in eighth grade, freshman year of high school, and my grandmother called my dad and told him, “Wayne, I’ve been talking to God about Wayne Jr., and God’s told me he’s gonna go on the Bible Lands trip with you.”
That was in October, I think. She called in September, and my dad said, “Mom, I appreciate your praying, but number one: there are no seats left, and we bought all the tickets. And number two: we don’t have the money.” And my grandmother said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been talking to God. It’s gonna be okay.”
Well, a few days after that there was a man whose wife got sick who was going to go on that Bible Lands tourーcould not go. Called my dad and said, “If the tour company will let you switch the seats, you can give them to your son, and I’ll pay for it. You don’t owe me anything.”
And that’s what ended up happening, and my brother went over to the Bible Lands. It was a divine appointment. He would tell you, it was in the Garden Tomb where he realized the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The reality of that just completely impacted him.
[He] went out, heard a message by Dr. Ed Nelson (who’s now with the Lord), and God did a work in my brother’s heart that has lasted to this very day. And my grandmother knew that ahead of time. She’d already had wrestled that out with God and got on the victory ground about that important decision in my brother’s heart.
I remember when I had my grandmother in her latter years, when she was almost in Heaven. Prayed that we’d have children. And after which she prayed that prayer, she looked up at my wife and I, who had already been married several years and had a few miscarriages, and she said, “‘You’ve got it.'”
And certainly the Lord answered that prayerーgave us three wonderful daughters. And so I’ve always had in my heart an understanding that prayer is powerful. But I can honestly say, early in my life I didn’t understand how that would relate to me.
But I remember in college coming under the influence of this thought: “My parents are probably not gonna live a long time.” I was born when my parents were about mid-30s, and so they’re already a little bit older. And then, my dad had congestive heart failure; my mother got cancer nine years before she died.
So in college, I already was aware my parents were not well, and probably would not live a long, long time. And that really ended up being true. My dad went to Heaven in my mid-30s, and my mom went to Heaven in my late 20s.
And so I knew they could pray, and I knew they prayed for me, but I was overwhelmed with the factーof course, my grandmother at that time was not, she was getting older as grandmothers obviously doーand I knew I was gonna have to learn how to pray.
And when I got to collegeーI know I’ve said this in some of my other podcasts, but it fits in here. God began to stir my heart. I don’t knowーsophomore, junior year, somewhere in thereーand I began to clear time every night to go out and just seek the Lord.
Obviously, I didn’t have a great agenda. It wasn’t my devotional time. I didn’t necessarily know how to seek God, but I took my Bible, and I had extended time, and I went out under the darkened sky, and I just sought the Lord. And I many times just cried out to God, “I need You.” And that was the beginning of my prayer journey.
And although I didn’t know what I was doing, God leads you, and there are some sacred transactions that occurred when I was in college. There was a sense of divine destiny God put on my life as a result of spending time with God. There were prayers that I knew God had answered.
Some of those prayers may not have fully been answered yet, but I know that God has been answering them and will in the future, and was certainly a great foundation for my life and ministry.
Sometimes I’ll tell a college student, the greatest thing you can do in college is not get good grades and get a diploma. The greatest thing you can do is meet with God.
Now I’m not against good grades, and I’m not against getting that diploma on the wall, but those are secondary to meeting with God and knowing the reality of his presence. You have to know God.
Now I’d like to say that my prayer life began to grow from that point, but honestly, got into ministry, got busy, got out of the routine of college, which was so helpful, and I would say my prayer life waxed and waned.
Now don’t get me wrong, I had a team with me. We’d pray every day, and it wasn’t terrible. Sometimes we’d get desperate, really meet with God. Other times it was a little more perfunctory and predictable. We’d just pray around. But obviously, that prayer journey waxed and waned.
But late 90s, early 2000s, God began to put several of us on a revival journey where we recognized the need for something more. And corporate prayer became a part of that. And I thank the Lord for Dr. Rick Flanders, who began to teach me about revival prayer meetings and really turning them over to the Holy Spirit and praying as God would touch your heart.
And I began to institute that on the Minutemen team. That’d be 20-plus years ago. And our prayer meetings definitely brought much more life. And we were encouraged in a greater way that God was meeting with us. That became more and more important in those last two decades.
But then something happened in 2009, and I’m again, cutting into the chase here, where there was just a situation I won’t go intoーhealth situationーand I was in agony about it. And I remember the Lord dealing with me about a commitment to pray a certain amount of time every day. And I made that commitment to God and cried out to God, and immediately God gave me peace that that health situation was resolved. Which it was, remarkably….I think in many ways, miraculously.
And I began to keep that commitment, and it began to be life-changing once again, to have that commitment, not just, you know, praying because we should hither and yon. Again, that’s always good, but you know, the wax and waning…. It was now more consistent. And it was very powerful in my life.
And as a result of that, a few years after that, Falls Baptist Church began the Hour with God. The Bended Knee Conference stirred me, and of course, began to challenge me even deeper in that regard of personal prayer time. And the journey continues.
But I would say this last decade plus has been a tremendous joy to again once return more to some of that planned extended time on a daily basis. And I would encourage you, God may touch your heart, young person, to commit to a certain amount of time every day.
And it is important, and it’s gonna takeーwhat happens is you become purposeful, it’s not just chance anymore. You clear the time. You make it a top priority when God leads you to do that. And it can be very helpful.
I know people who began the hour with God, that it’s life changing because they’re now in a very real way on a daily basis, meeting with God for extended time. And that is extremely valuable, to spend time with God.
My journey in prayer…. Again, much could be said, but it’s been a joy to see God just work. And again, I feel in many ways still like a toddler in prayer, but it’s like this: it’s like a miner who’s been mining, and he comes up with a gold nugget, and he realizes, “Oh, there’s a vein of gold! I think I’m gonna mine in this vein.”
That’s the way I feel with prayer. It’s a great “spiritual gold mine,” if we could put it that way, to mine in. And that’s where I realized that I want to spend much of my time in these years of life toward the end of ministry and life really committing more and more in that area of prayer.
And obviously, I’m in a very busy ministry, but there is time to commit, to spend time with God, and that has been such a joy and such a help. And I know God has done so many things as a result of just that time with the Lord.
And I encourage a young person, or even older person, in the area of prayer. It’s a journey. But it does takeーit takes being purposeful, and it takes being, “God, I gotta meet with you.” And in those times as we spend with God, we grow.
Sometimes it’s a spiritual battle. I will realize sometimes you feel like you’re in hand-to-hand combat and feel like the Devil’s right there and don’t feel like you’re accomplishing much.
But I’ve learned: Be faithful. And what God has led you to do by His grace and dependence on Him, wrestle through. Other times you’re carried along. The Holy Spirit just carries you along, and you know you’re meeting with God.
But no matter what, be faithful and purposeful in this journey of meeting with God and spending time in prayer. And that really is part of the life of total surrender.
And really, prayer is the breath of dependence. That’s a part of total dependence on His grace and His power as we walk the Christian walk, live the Christian life, and try to impact others by the grace of God with His Word and His Spirit.
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