RAISING THE DEAD vs RAISING YOUR KIDS - PART THREE

OK.. so let's be real. Do you really believe that you can make it through life on this crazy planet....have a great marriage........raise good kids......find peace that passes human understanding.. know God's will in challenging situations...and be a woman who hardly ever PRAYS???? YOU DO???  I'm speechless.

Do you think a relationship with God begins with a prayer you prayed one day to "accept Him" and can be sustained primarily through your regular attendance  at a one hour, void-of-much-praying church service in a church somewhere?  YOU DO??? I'm speechless.

I would be doing less than my mentoring best if I didn't spend a few blogs talking to my sweet Mrs. Younger's about prayer.  

Because... and read the next sentence carefully.... YOU CANNOT OVERCOME WHAT LIFE IS GOING TO THROW AT YOU, SWEET MRS. YOUNGER, UNLESS AND UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU MUST BE A WOMAN OF PRAYER.   THAT'S THE TRUTH. 

LET ME CLARIFY......There's nothing wrong with a one-word panic prayer "HELP!"  God hears those prayers. God answers those prayers. God's attention is drawn to every desperate prayer from every desperate child of His.  But that's not His idea of what it means for your "house"  to be a "house of prayer."

Prayer is what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the steady, constant, unshakeable, powerful walk that supersedes your talk.  That kind of WALK makes people TALK.... I'm talking about being the woman people ask to pray.. instead of being the woman who is constantly making panic-driven requests from other people who pray....in your time of crisis.   The truth is that you cannot be taught prayer.  YOU JUST HAVE TO DO IT.

I'm not going to list every verse in the Gospels about Jesus and HOW he prayed. But evidently the disciples saw something in the way HE prayed that caused them to ask Him, "Lord teach US to pray."    These are men whose lives revolved around the synagogue.  These were RELIGIOUS MEN.  And YET.. there was SOMETHING ABOUT THE PRAYER LIFE OF JESUS that was NEW.  AND POWERFUL.
 
God will speak to you as you allow Him the time to do so.  Prayer has to be a two way street.  You speak to God.  He speaks to you. Some people are wary of someone who says you need to hear God speak to your as you pray.  And rightly so.  God will never say something in prayer that contradicts His Word. The Bible.

HOWEVER... Jesus... who IS The Very Word Of Very God... and Who wrote the Bible through the Holy Spirit... STILL TOOK TIME TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO PRAYER. 

IF JESUS - the ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD - was DEVOTED to prayer.... where did we get the idea that we don't have to be? 

And how in God's name did we become a group of people who think prayer is ONLY ABOUT giving God your list of "requests"???   Read the previous blog if that's what you think.. and that's what you do.

I suspect most of you will yawn through this series.  I feel God has placed some stuff on my heart for me to TYPE... lol...  I pray the Holy Spirit will give you the desire to overcome the yawn.

NEXT TIME.
KEEP READING.
XO,
Mrs. Older