HOW LONG IS A GOOD PRAYER?

I am not sure what brought this thought on.

Perhaps it was because Sunday we had a visiting

preacher who would not stop talking.  His topic was

"wisdom".  I forget where his text was from.  It was

from somewhere in the Old Testament - but not in 

Proverbs.

He used the same text in the morning and the evening.

In the morning he "preached" for forty five minutes

and in the evening for a full hour.  But after all that

 "preaching" I never did figure out what his point was.

This only proves the Scripture:

"The more words you speak, the less

 they mean.  So what good are they?"

(Ecclesiastes 6:11 NLT)

But my thought is prayer, not preaching.

Let me tell you about one of the most effective

prayers I ever prayed in my life.

Pride got me into trouble.  I had bought a old

motorcycle off of a friend.  He had not been able

to get it started so I wanted to be able to brag about

getting it going real easy the next time I saw him.

I was over zealous with starting fluid and the

motorcycle backfired and caught number four

carburetor on fire.  The flames were licking up

around the gas tank which was about one half

full of gas.

I have had things like that happen on cars back

when they had carburetors.  I ether snuffed the

fire out with a rag, or have even blown the fire

out with my mouth.  But I could not do it with

this motorcycle.  I blew and only singed my eye

brows.  I beat with a rag and only got tired.

I finally spotted my fire extinguisher.  I grabbed

it, pulled the pin and pulled the trigger - NOTHING.

The fire extinguisher had simply set around to

long and had lost it pressure.

I thought about pushing the motorcycle outside

the shop and simply let it burn up.  But, my car

was setting just out side the shop door.  And if

I pushed it past my car it would go over the drive

way and roll down by the house.

I was getting desperate.  I was wearing out beating

the flames away from the tank when I prayed perhaps

the most effective prayer of my life at the top of my

voice:

"JESUS HELP ME."

and the fire went out just like that.

A really good prayer is three words long.

"When you pray, don't babble on

and on as the Gentiles do.  They

think their prayers are answered

merely by repeating their words

again and again.  Don't be like

them, for your Father knows exactly

what you need even before you ask

him!"

(Matthew 6:7,8 NLT)