Prayer Practice

Little by little every day
Little by little in every way
Jesus is changing me...

Curious about a fellowship in town, I decided to visit one of the nights to check it out.  At the end of the night, the pastor asked for us to share prayer requests and then challenged us to pray for the other within the week and follow-up.  This is pretty routine for small groups, but for some reason my heart grew heavy on this night.  As I listened to each person’s prayer request, my heart grew heavy with the conviction of how much I’ve grown out of touch with the practice of prayer. 

By no means has my relationship with God disconnected, but the practice of prayer has dwindled significantly.  The busy-ness of life leaves me exhausted by the end of the day – definitely by the end of the week.  Waiting on the Lord wears down on a soul; my wishes, my plans are not coming true fast enough. My prayers have become mere day-dreaming or zoning out, easily distracted by the needs of the day.  I have so many thoughts in my head that I often find myself drawing a blank.

My youth pastor taught us how to structure our prayer: begin with thanks, confess your sins, prayer requests.  As I took one of my morning commutes as a time to “speak” with God, I decided that this was a good place to start.  Simplicity is what God asks for, and it sounds pretty nice in such a "loud" world.

I think maybe God is prodding me to start my intentional walk with Him, practicing my verbal prayers and carving out time for it.  I didn't really give anything up for Lent this year, but I guess practicing my prayer walk would be a good start.  With no expectancy in this conviction,  we’ll see where this takes me. 

He’s changing me, my precious Jesus
I’m not the same person that I used to be
Some times it’s slow going
but there’s a knowing
That one day perfect I will be.