Faith in Prayer

 

If we truly want to work on spending time with God and bringing things to him, where do we start? The older I get the more I appreciate the verses in 1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

I know for the most part these verses explain themselves, but I think they are verses we should all memorize and come back to on a regular basis. On a daily basis am I rejoicing? Too often we think we need to have these long prayers where we pray for every sick child in the world, world peace and every single person we have ever met. Of course, we can pray for those things, but I think more importantly we need to focus on the things that cross our minds. If we are driving to work and we are worried about the crazy day ahead of us or a co-worker who is struggling in some way, pray about it. If we get a text that a family member is sick, pray about it. If we have something coming up in a few weeks and it's making us feel anxious or concerned, pray about it. The simple act of getting use to going to God with things when they come up will get us use to communicating with God and bringing things to him that impact us or concern us.

What about when things have been rough for a while, and we know that part of the reason is because we have been distant from God? I wish everyone was comfortable with admitting that sometimes we go through stretches when we don't feel completely in it. Let's be honest, sometimes the phone rings during prayer time and we have to take it. If we don't have a designated prayer time, sometimes we get to the end of the day and our minds haven't stopped racing for the day and we just can't concentrate long enough to have a good prayer. And, if we are completely being honest, sometimes we doze off during prayer time. If you ever have had those stretches you have two choices, you can just decide to stop praying, or you can take a few minutes to regroup. When that happens, I think it helps to have a verse to go to. Let's look at 2 Chronicles 7:14-15

14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 15 Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.

I know that maybe your first thought is that missing a few prayer times or just racing through a prayer isn't necessarily wicked, but, if we don't get ourselves straightened out, satan will use that guilt we have and make us feel like we are the most wicked person in the world. My opinion-it's better to humble myself as a wicked person then have too much pride and continue to sin. 

My challenge to you this week, try and take as many things as possible to God in prayer. No matter how big or how small, bring it to God in prayer. Also, see if you can every day this week read the verses from 1 Thessalonians.   Rejoice, Pray and Give Thanks!