February 2, 2016
When your kids have to wear uniforms to school and it’s 9 PM on Sunday and you’ve spent your weekend sleeping in and eating out and forgetting school’s in session, you tiptoe into the laundry room with fingers crossed checking for clean uniforms.
When the clock all of a sudden reads five and it’s slipped your mind that these people need a meal and all packages of meat in the freezer are solid lumps that refuse to thaw in a few minutes, you peek into the pantry with one eye open in hopes there’s a jar of spaghetti sauce and some sort of pasta.
When the breath-holding and wishing don’t go your way, there’s always Febreeze. There’s peanut butter and jelly to make a meal.
But when it comes down to our lives…I mean the real life stuff…the relationships, the decisions, the goals, the temptations. We can’t approach those things with one eye peeking into the future while momentarily coming up for air. I mean, we can. But we certainly don’t have to.
Not when we’ve been given a tool to equip us with power to approach the Throne of God with our praises and requests. The power of prayer.
And yet how often we don’t use it. I don’t use it. I make measly attempts to survive my days relying on my own strengths to defeat the temptations coming at me. Relying on my own knowledge to decide what’s best for my life. And I am a woman that doesn’t trust myself to go to the grocery store without a list in hand. And yet time and again, I attempt life without offering up thanksgiving, without seeking His wisdom, without arming myself with the power of prayer.
Prayer offers daily communication with our Maker. Oxygen for the believer. Let’s stop the tip-toeing and wishing and boldly approach the Throne. Make prayer a priority rather than a last ditch effort.
“God’s plan for you is to move you into a position of impact by infusing you with truth and employing you in prayer. You don’t need to be a genius to do it. You don’t need to learn ten-dollar words and be able to spout them with theological ease. You just need to bring your honest, transparent, available-and let’s just say it-your fed-up, over-it, stepped-on-your-last-nerve self, and be ready to become fervently relentless. All in His name.” (Priscilla Shirer, Fervent)
Click here to read my review of Priscilla Shirer’s Fervent. Enter to win your own copy!