I was really convicted by the following verses from Colossians 4:
2 Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart. 3 Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. 4 Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.
I pray a couple of times per day, but it's not systematic like it should be. I really need to get on board with my wife and have "devoted" prayer time. I can see that this is one of the major steps towards growth in Christ in my life.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word that teaches me how to live. Lord, please help me become a consistent and systematic prayer. Lord, I want to ask for your will to be done in the lives of my wife, friends, family, and me. Lord, please help me cooperate with you to accomplish your will for my life, and please grow me according to your good plan. I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
I hear ya on being more urgent about praying. It's hard for me, sometimes, to be conversational with God in my prayers. I sometimes fall into the trap of your typical Christian prayer (similar to the dinner table prayer):
ReplyDelete"God thank you for your blessing, protect us, watch over us, blah-blah-blah."
But it is hard to be consistent in digging deep down into the depth of our souls and seeking God out. You know, I got up and fed Caleb last night from 1:15-2:40am, and I cried over him with prayers. I've done the same recently with Abigale too, where I truly shed tears of thanksgiving for their lives to God; but it has been awhile since I've done that for Heather even though we both have a lot to be thankful for.
I just realized while typing this, that next week is Thanksgiving (tell ya how busy I am); and I didn't do this with my children because of the holiday; but I truly felt a need to give God glory for their lives. Just felt a need to clarify that for whatever reason.
All of that to say, I'm in the same boat about needing to be consistent with more "heart felt" prayers, instead of routine prayers that we fall into.
Thanks for the encouragement I found in your blog today.
You nailed it on the head. I couldn't put my finger on it, but your quote nailed it:
ReplyDelete"it is hard to be consistent in digging deep down into the depth of our souls and seeking God out."
It takes a lot of work, exercise, and investment. You have to make up your mind to work hard; you don't accidentally work hard.
Wow. That's what I need. I need to make up my mind to do it and work hard at it.
Thanks for the insight, Nate.