I’m on my own this weekend. Missing church was a tempting thought. I had stayed up late watching the Olympics.
Before I went to sleep, I asked the Lord to wake me up in time to get ready. Sure, I could have set the alarm, but I was feeling lazy and was still iffy about going.
The Lord is faithful. He woke me up at 6:45. Come on, Lord, you know I don’t need that long to beautify myself. I turned over and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 7:30. Ugh. Thirty more minutes please. This time, I didn’t fall asleep hard but kind of tossed and turned. The next time I looked at the clock it was 8:15.
Ok, ok. I’ll get up. God was gracious, even in the beautifying. My hair cooperated, and my eyeliner went on straight. Off I went.
Let me tell you…boy am I glad! The music was AMAZING this morning! There are some songs that really get me, and we sang one of them today. The song is I Stand Amazed (How Wonderful).
If you’ve never heard it, please give it a listen…
I have never really understood why I can be smiling one second and be brought to tears the next. Something about these songs opens up my heart, and my soul is laid bare. It goes beyond comprehending with your mind. I can’t really put this feeling into words. I guess it’s like the outpouring of love I felt for my children the moment I laid eyes on them. The love seems to ooze from deep within, and you’re powerless to stop it.
In this mindset, I sat down to listen to the sermon. This morning, our pastor spoke about prayer. He talked about pagan and religious prayer. The focus of pagan prayer is the prayer itself, as if some magic can be performed if the right words are spoken. Uh oh…I’ve been guilty of this more times than I can count.
Religious prayer is prayer that focuses on the person. This kind of prayer seeks God’s answer by attempting to call attention to itself by its grandiose nature.
Compare this to Paul’s prayers. Paul prayed that people would grow in their knowledge of the Lord and the depth and height of His love. Everything about Paul’s prayers pointed to Lord and away from self. Prayer is about honesty…seeing ourselves as God sees us and acknowledging our need for Him.
What was striking to me is that there is nothing we can do to make God answer our prayers. He alone gets the glory for answered prayer.
I heard the challenge that was put out today. I need to set aside dedicated time to pray each day. My pastor suggested this, as well as journaling. Journaling can entail writing a brief synopsis of spiritual highs and lows from the day before, prayers for the current day, and what we hear or even thoughts that hit our mind during that time, regardless of how unrelated they might be. He also suggested reading the Word and praying the Word. Often, God leads us to passages that are relevant to what needs to be prayed that day.
I’m sorry if I sound preachy. It’s just that I think that the world’s idea of prayer is vastly different from God’s idea. It’s another reminder that there’s still much to do.
I added a new page, at the top, to my blog. This is something that’s been on my heart for a while. If you have anything you would like me to pray for, please go to that page and leave a comment.
Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: Christianity, prayer, sermon | 1 Comment »
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