Jon Graf’s grandfather, Rev. Howell Graf, was a man of prayer.
As a kid, Jon remembers playing games with his grandfather. Often when Jon would look over at him, and he was not there! He was daydreaming, almost in a trance. Jon would “wake” him up by saying, “Grandpa, grandpa, wake up! It’s your turn; it’s you turn.”
Howell Graf would come out of it with a sigh and a faraway look in his eye, and say, “Bless the Lord! Bless the Lord!”
What was the matter with grandpa? Jon did not realize it at the time, but Howell had such a relationship with God, when his mind could wander, it automatically went into God’s presence. It went to prayer!
Jon has spent 25 years of his life in prayer ministry—helping individuals and churches learn to pray—largely because of his grandfather’s prayer life!
Over the years Jon has learned some principles about prayer and its connection to the Holy Spirit that have changed his life.
“We tend to use prayer to get stuff,” says Jon. “Fix this, make this better. But in reality, when we pray, we get the Holy Spirit. We get God’s presence welling up within us, blessing us and making us a blessing to others.”
“That’s why we need to work on our prayer lives and not neglect it,” adds Jon. “Prayer will cause us to experience God. It moves our connection with God from something we believe in our heads to a reality we experience in our souls.”
In his new podcast, Pray Beyond, Jon shares “the ultimate answer to prayer” and offers some practical steps to lead us more regularly into God’s presence.
