Revolution!

More and more lately, I am thinking about prayer. I know most of us have learned a certain format for prayer, or maybe "pattern" would be a better word. Some are even given the exact words they must pray. I keep feeling the urge to "break out" of the pattern, though. 
Jesus' disciples, born, raised and living within the Jewish faith, felt they had to ask Jesus how to pray. They had heard and, most likely, prayed all of their lives, yet they were asking to be taught how to pray. They knew that Jesus in prayer was different than anything they had ever witnessed in their religion and tradition. Jesus, going off by Himself, had unspeakably powerful and intimate prayer experiences with the Father. The disciples wanted this incredible spiritual experience that they witnessed placed into a learnable format. It seems strange, though, for prayer to have a format, when we consider how personal and interpersonal it should be with our Creator. Maybe our Lord is looking for a "prayer revolution"!
Scripture contains examples of some really strange "pray-ers" and prayers- prayer revolutionaries for their time. It is very likely that the people who prayed in these examples, and the manner in which they prayed, were considered unacceptable in their day, and possibly would not be considered acceptable in many churches, synagogues, or prayer groups today either. Yet these "inappropriate" people, and their "unacceptable" prayers, wrought the miracle power of God.
Jesus described prayer this way: He said to go into our innermost room, to shut the door, and "to pray to your Father who is in the secret place." Again, this was a departure from the usual prayer formula of the day, and from the example that was set by the religious authorities (Mt. 6:5-6).
Hannah is an example from scripture of someone who unknowingly ventured into a different realm of prayer. The LORD had shut her womb, so she could not bear children. Desperate, she went to the tabernacle in Shiloh to pray for a child. She prayed from a soul burdened with bitterness, and she wept in anguish. In praying for a child, Hannah made an oath to the LORD that if He would give her a son, she would dedicate that son back to the LORD for service to Him all the days of his life. The priest, Eli, seated at the doorpost of the tabernacle, watched Hannah as she was praying. Eli thought Hannah had been drinking because she prayed silently in her heart, with only her lips moving, and he scolded her for being drunk (1 Sam. 1:13-14). She answered Eli's accusation:
"No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine, nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD. Do not consider your maidservant a wicked (daughter of Belial) woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now."  v. 15-16
The religious of her day would have considered Hannah to have been a judged and cursed woman, since the LORD was the One Who shut her womb in the first place. She was also a woman coming by herself to the tabernacle of the LORD without a male, specifically her husband, Elkanah, to accompany her. Her manner of prayer was unacceptable. All of these assumptions might have been made by people because of the outward appearance and circumstances that Hannah presented that day. They would have been wrong.
God heard Hannah's prayer that day, and her son, Samuel was born. He became a prophet, a judge, and a minister to the LORD under Eli, the priest. He anointed kings, including David, who would establish the royal line of the coming Messiah. Samuel, who heard and obeyed the voice of the LORD, served the LORD in the tabernacle under the priest, even though he was not a Levite. Samuel was an Ephraimite - another pattern broken.
Hannah, after the birth of her miracle son, prayed a prayer that is one of the most powerful prayers of spiritual warfare and revelation, even the revelation of life from the grave, seen in scripture (1 Sam. 2:1-10). Hannah's very name means "grace, entreaty, prayer". The root meaning is "show favor, have mercy, seek favor, implore favor". The root also contains the meaning "to be loathsome". There's the paradox of Hannah: she is considered loathsome because of her circumstances, but from the misery of that condition, her soul poured out miraculous prayer that moved the hand of God. It could be said that God closed Hannah's womb for the purpose of bringing her to the very spiritual place and to the exact moment, in order to birth a Samuel (meaning "His name is EL", "Heard of God") in the earth. This Samuel was one who heard and obeyed God, but "Samuel" was also about God "hearing, listening to, obeying, granting requests to, agreeing with, yielding to, consenting with, hearing with attention to" man.
Another great prayer revolutionary in scripture was at the opposite end of the spectrum from our little Hannah. However, he was also one whom others would consider least likely to forge a prayer revolution because he was a king. David created prayer songs from his most personal experiences. Some of the prayers are of the most intimate nature-between himself and God, revealing his private heart, even though he knew that they would be sung in public. Out of David's personal circumstances of fear, victory, betrayal, shameful sin and deepest personal repentance, utmost joy, personal worship and reverence, came miracle prayers of deliverance, victory, healing, provision, salvation and more. Each psalm is different with no set pattern, beginning or ending. Of course, we have taken his prayers, and have included them into some of our prayer "format"! Maybe there is a greater lesson to be learned from those precious prayers of David than a formula.
Prayer is the eternal hope of man that he may speak to God. It is a personal, spiritual blessing given by the Almighty to man, which can never be silenced except by man himself. All creation depends upon the prayers of man. It is too big to be confined within the structure that we assigned for it. Eli would have sent Hannah away based upon his perceptions of who should pray, and how one should pray, and if he had done that, a moment and a miracle would have been lost.
God does not see as man sees. Men judge by the outward appearance, but the LORD looks upon the heart (1 Sa, 16:7). The LORD had to make this very correction to our miracle son, Samuel, when he would have anointed the wrong man to be king. Sometimes the most unlikely person may carry a miracle prayer in their heart.
I know that somewhere out there there are prayer revolutionaries. They are probably unknown and unrecognized, but they are in their prayer closets exposing their deepest heart to God. That's where I want to be also.

Don't be afraid to break out of the prayer box. Don't feel that you are insignificant in prayer, or that your prayer is not as valuable as others'. As with Hannah, each of us has been brought through personal circumstances, to a moment before God. We have carried this precious seed of prayer that is unique to each one. No one else can bring this same seed to birth like you can, or like I can, as a unique individual. We have been brought to these prayer moments with that seed, in order to birth a Samuel in the earth. Like Hannah and David, the "Samuel" we birth at any given moment of a day, might be a Samuel of thanks and gratitude, provision, healing, peace, life, hope, rest, salvation, repentance, forgiveness, resurrection, reconciliation, revival, revelation, justice, love, faith, renewal, restoration, mercy, grace, truth, holiness, righteousness - the possibilities are as limitless as a life, or as God, Himself.

Our Father is calling us to a prayer revolution!