“Then he touched their eyes and said, ‘According to your faith will it be done to you’ ” (Matthew 9:29, NIV)

A new national faith survey of more than 3,000 Canadians shows that 30 per cent of Canadians say they are religious. And of the religiously inclined, nine of 10 pray on a regular basis. (Maclean’s, March 2015)

90% believe in the prayer!

Sure many of us pray, but most of the time we pray timid prayers. We typically pray over our food, for our children, or ask God for wisdom, strength and health. We tend not to pray bold prayers but rather pretty passive prayers, like, “God, grant me travelling mercies.” I can just imagine God saying, “Put your seat belt on, put your phone away and pay attention to the road… Now give me a biggie and believe I can do it!”

We tend to pray timid prayers like, “God, help me get by this year”, or “God, help me endure this illness”, don't we? Of course there is nothing wrong with that, but there are two things I want to point out.

1. What you pray reflects what you believe about God. Think about it. If we only pray for the small stuff, does that mean we don’t believe that God is a God who answers big prayers? And what about this? If all your prayers are for yourself: “bless me”, “help me”, “comfort me”, does that reflect your belief in God that God is there only to serve you? I really believe that what we pray reflects what we believe about God.

2. To pray bold prayers we need to get to know God. And we do that by spending time with God in prayer and in God’s word. As we do our faith will grow, which leads to more boldness in our prayers. As our boldness grows, it leads to results. Which leads to more time with God, more faith, more boldness, more results. See how that goes? Bold prayers honour God and God honours bold prayers.

Here’s the bottom line: Be bold in your prayers and don’t limit what God can do, in and through your life!

How have you been praying lately? Have you been praying bold or timid prayers? Why?

Join us this Sunday as we continue our series entitled Extreme Boldness. This week we will focus on, you guessed it... Bold Prayers. Come and gather with us as we worship our limitless God. See you Sunday and bring a friend!