Cedar Rapids Trinity UMC - It's ALL about Jesus!!

Brothers and Sisters in Christ -

"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to teach them that they should always pray and never become discouraged.  ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected people.  And there was a widow in that same town who kept coming to him and pleading for her rights, saying, "Help me against my opponent!'  For a long time the judge refused to act, but at last he said to himself, "Even though I don't fear God or respect people, yet because of all the trouble this widow is giving me, I will see to it that she gets her rights. If I don't, she will keep on coming and finally wear me out!' " And the Lord continued, "Listen to what that corrupt judge said.  Now, will God not judge in favor of his own people who cry to him day and night for help? Will he be slow to help them? I tell you, he will judge in their favor and do it quickly. But will the Son of Man find faith on earth when he comes?"          Luke 18: 1 - 8  GNT

It has been said by folks a whole lot smarter than me that prayer is, to the Christian life, what breathing is to the physical life - it is an indispensable part of it, and without it, we cannot thrive.  The more that God continues to make me in to the person that He wants me to be, the truer I find this to be, and the amazing thing is how prayer (and sometimes, the lack of it) has a direct impact on every part of my life. On those days that I pray a lot, I find that I am more at peace with my life, and that my life seems to be more at peace with me!  But on those days when I'm not spending enough time in prayer (for whatever reason), I become more anxious and stressed, and things just don't seem to "go right".

The Apostle Paul tells us, in more than one place in Scripture, to be in prayer constantly. At the end of the day, prayer is really an ongoing conversation with God, and I look at it from two different points of view: 1) God does call on us to pray persistently, as in the passage above, and 2) I think it is possible that, since God already knows what's on our hearts before we pray, that prayer is more of an ADMISSION OF OUR NEED for God than it is about telling God anything specific.

Does God answer prayers? You bet He does - that is His promise to us. But we all need to understand this - sometimes the answer is "YES", sometimes the answer is "NO", sometimes the answer is "LATER", sometimes the answer is "I'M PREPARING YOU FOR SOMETHING ELSE", and sometimes the answer is "I HAVE SOMETHING BETTER FOR YOU".  So never get discouraged in your prayer life, because God hasn't left you - it's just that we don't see His big picture as clearly as He does.  

A couple of suggestions for you today:

1) Set aside a specific time of the day, whether it be ten minutes or an hour, for quiet time with God. Be purposeful in this - as you start the day, as you prepare to do your Bible reading, or another time that works for you that you can devote to prayer.

2) Pray on the spur of the moment - sometimes God pops things into our minds and hearts unexpectedly during the day, and that can be a hint for a prayer need.

3) Use the prayer list from our bulletin and newsletter, and lift each of these concerns up individually (especially keep ME in your prayers! ).

4) Pray the Psalms - that's what they were designed for, and God can speak forcefully to us through them

5) If you get awakened in the middle of the night, pray about the first thing that comes into your head. In my life, I believe that to be a gentle nudge by the Lord!

All God's blessings,

Pastor Bob