Prayer

As we have been going through Luke Wednesday nights I am constantly brought back to the point of the importance of prayer. Time and time again we read Jesus breaking away to pray. If Jesus saw the importance of prayer why do we often neglect it? We are good at the tangibles, doing things that we can see progress such as daily Bible reading, tracking through a devotional book, or listening to a sermon series. But to get down on our knees and pray, to do something that there might not be an immediate result that is so against our nature. Yet there very thing we need to do most we often fail to do. The one thing we are told by Paul to do without ceasing (1st Thessalonians 5:17), it is often an after thought or something we do running out the door. Prayer is not to be a chore that we loathe to do. Prayer is not to be like an annoying friend that we dread meeting up with. Rather praying is something that we are called to. Prayer is something that we get to join in on and be a part of what God is doing! Like Acts 12 when Peter is imprisoned and many gathered together at the house of Mary (John-Marks mom), for prayer for Peter and he was freed. As John Wesley puts it, “Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.”

TFAB we are called to prayer, not just today, not just this week, or a month of prayer but a lifetime of prayer. My hope is that our knees would be red from the carpet and our carpets worn down in our closets from so much time spent quietly before God in earnest prayer.

Brett