Luke 11:1 "Lord, teach us to pray."
Today's topic in my devotional is prayer. I actually groaned inwardly when I read the topic. I'm just trying to be brutally honest here. God knows that I groaned...so I am telling you that I did. When I hear about prayer, I sometimes liken it to doing some strenuous exercise. For me that would be like forcing myself to do sit-ups repeatedly.
I really don't do well with prayer...and I know it is an intricate part of walking with God. I don't do sit-ups: hence I have very weak abs. I don't pray: hence I am a weakling spiritually too.
Actually, throughout my Christian life, I have gone up and down in my prayer life. Just like with exercise. There was a time when my prayer life was the bomb! (at least I thought so) What happened? Somewhere along the line, I stopped doing it. Just like with exercise. There was a time when I trained for a 5k race and did it. Now...I couldn't do it if my life depended upon it.
What does Chambers say about prayer? Here are some quotes from him concerning the topic.
"We look upon prayer as a means for getting things for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself."
He goes on to say that we are apologetic and apathetic when approaching God and ask for very few things in spite of the scripture that says, "Ask and ye shall receive." We ought to become childlike in our asking.
"When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get into touch with reality. Be yourself before God and present your problems, the things you know you have come to your wits' end over."
"It is not so true that prayer changes things as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition."
Well...I definitely need to change the way I look at things. I said on Day 1 that my outlook is rather negative and that my marriage is lacking. I know it is because of my faulty way of looking at things. I know I need the Holy Spirit's help in changing this. Prayer looks like the right path to get on to change this.
I continue to be amazed at how God works in the lives of His people. A few years back I prayed that God would scrape out those dirty hidden corners of my heart. He began a work that continues to this day. Sometimes it hurts but I have come to realize when the pain and discomfort sets in He is at work again.
ReplyDelete