Are you struggling in prayer?

If you struggle at times in your prayer life, you stand in an extremely long line of Christians who find it difficult to pray at times.  I want to give you a few pointers that may help.




1. Schedule a regular time of prayer.

• I recommend that your prayer time be early. This is when Jesus chose to pray to His Father. Mark 1:35
• Make sure that your place of prayer is without distraction if possible.
• I like to have praise music playing softly in the background. I have music uploaded to my computer and just let it play randomly at a low volume.

 2. Use the Bible as a guide to your prayers.

• Reading a chapter of Psalms while you pray and using select verses as a guide to your prayer is a great way to involve the Word in your time of prayer. You can't go wrong with God's Word!

3. Look through your church directory.

• When I struggle in prayer, I like to look through my church directory and thank God for the people that love me in Christ. Gal. 6:10
• This also allows us to remember needs of others as we pray.

4. Pray through the church prayer request list.

• Bro. John Rice posts the church prayer request list at our church. He does this via email each month. He does a wonderful job with this. It's very detailed and gives me much to pray about.

5. Make prayer a dialogue not a monologue.

• In other words, allow the conversation be two sided. Why not ask God what it is that HE would like to talk about? 
• We all know of "conversation dominators". Most of us have the tendency to ignore people who talk too much. Trust me, I know this to be true in my own life (no jokes needed LOL). Literally ask God what it is that HE wants to talk about.
• It's been my experience that God wants to talk about 2 things: 

(1) God wants to talk about Himself. He created all things for Himself and to give Himself glory. 
(2) He wants to talk about why we can't talk about Him. In other words. If we CAN'T talk about Him, what is the reason? More often than not, it is a sin in our lives that needs to be repented of.

Note: remember that prayer is not our method of getting our wish list. Though we may utilize the time we have with God making requests, this is not the only reason we pray. Prayer should be our time to fellowship with the creator. Remember, if at the end of your prayer time, you receive nothing more than Jesus, you have been successful at reaching the throne of God. I hope these things help you in your prayer life. 

Press or Cut?

Have you noticed how easy it is, when facing some dilemma, to very quickly begin to think of what might be the easiest way to avoid the problem? For instance, when we are stretched thin on time we quickly begin to consider what we might cut from our agenda. While this isn't uncommon, and many times may ultimately be our only option, we are way too quick to assume that "easy" is best.  Another example can be found in church. We are often way too quick to "cut" instead of "press". Again, cutting may ultimately be our only option, but we must not be so quick to jump to that conclusion. In the 1600's an insightful individual coined the term, "...the path of least resistance." May that NOT be our anthem in 2012. Friend, instead of saying "I can't afford that", instead ask, "How can I afford that?"  Do you see how that "pressing" can be better than quitting. In 2012, stop saying "What would be easier." Instead, work hard to do hard things better.

"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." Phil. 3:14

Pastor Mike