A Call To Prayer

I realize that I have been writing about prayer for the last few weeks. I believe the reason that church sign bothered me so much is that there is a stirring in my soul/spirit/heart that we need to be praying.

The Pastor at my work church has been feeling it too.

The movie War Room comes out this week. It is about how prayer is a powerful weapon.

At my work, they are going to see the movie on Saturday. Then, Pastor Butch was lead to start what he's calling "Infinity Prayer Conference." 

This is a conference/ revival of sorts, to help us with prayer. Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians to pray without ceasing. 

Yesterday, in our staff meeting, Pastor Butch's devotional time with us was about prayer. I took notes and wanted to share some with you.

*Prayer is depending on God.

*You can't do anything in your own power!

*Don't pray to get what you want - pray for His will & give thanks for EVERYTHING!

*We need to pray about almost everything. For example, we don't need to pray about witnessing to someone, because we should do that anyway, but we should pray for the chance to talk to people and for the words to say.

*Prayer is a great agent for change. It's that God changes US - not the circumstances. He enables us to give thanks.

*How does joy become a part of that? The fruit of prayer is His Presence. The more you pray the more your prayer changes, too.

Someone asked me this week, in response to my church sign rant how my prayer life was. I pray every day. My regular quiet time is early morning. I will admit, sometimes, on Monday, if I didn't do something on Sunday that I should have, I allow it to take place of my prayer time. I'm not going to do that any more. Even that one day "off" messes me up. I still read my devotionals and stuff, but I don't write in my prayer journal. It's not a focused time of prayer. 

One thing I think we need to realize is that we can pray all day throughout the day and anytime or anywhere. It doesn't have to be out loud on our knees for four hours straight. It can be something simple as hearing a co-worker cough and asking God real quick to heal their cough.

It's about CONSTANT communication with Him. He's always there. Always listening, and always ready to respond.

I believe as Christians we are being called to prayer. This is a critical time in our culture. There are Christians being murdered for their beliefs. Yes, that's been happening since Jesus' time, but in  2015, you'd think we would have a freedom to believe however we want to. I just think our enemy is on high alert. He knows his time is short and he's pulling out all the stops.

You couldn't have a relationship with someone if you didn't communicate with them. Our prayers to God are how we communicate with Him. If you don't already have a quiet time, get up a few minutes early each day and fit it in. Maybe you can focus better at night, that's cool. Take a few minutes before bed. Just be sure it's a time you can easily focus.

I hope that this will encourage you to pray more. Like I said, being a writer, I focus better when I write, so I have a prayer journal. I've been doing that for years. It just helps me pray and not get distracted. You don't have to do it my way. Do whatever works for you.

Whatever you do though... pray without ceasing!