In my quiet time this morning, I was reading about the importance of being connected to God. Not just knowing about Him. We know that. I know it. Still, sometimes I find that it's so much easier for me to talk about Him, write about Him, read about Him, than it is to pray.
Worship and pursuit is just that. It eliminates the 'about' factor, and plunges us to the 'engage' factor.
Still, in all the time I spend in musical worship, I fight to spend time in simple prayer. Why does that have to be so hard? For believers, I think it works like this....
Prayer is hard to forget but difficult to remember.
We all know how important it is, but at the end of the day, so many of us take our left over, just before we doze, time - label it as prayer - and slip into unconciousness.
Here's another factor - Job's friends spent chapter after chapter advising, analyzing, and discussing his situation. None of them prayed for him. What's up with that? It was after Job's engagement with God that his life began to recover from it's devastation. Isaiah keenly points out that there is no justice because there is no prayer....
I read that this morning. I'd read it before, but it struck me today in a new way.
Our family has been going through a hard time. It involves a lot that I won't go into here, save this comment - I have felt like we have been under an onslaught of attack and there has been very little reprieve for quite some time. This morning, I woke up at 5am with a tugging on my heart that I needed to pray. I've been sick, so it was a struggle to encourage myself out of the bed. When I finally sat down on the couch in my usual quiet time spot, I realized that I distant... weak.... and honestly powerless. Almost immediately I began to remind myself of the importance of prayer. The power of prayer. The need of prayer.
And then I felt my mind justifying my lazy attitude about it.....WHAT!? I could hear my own words (spoken to my children countless times) "Your focus needs more focus."
Prayer.
There is no justice because there is no prayer.
I read it again and again.
And then I heard that today is the national day of prayer.
How appropriate.