Sorry I'm late with the monday post! Sick baby at home...
When do we pray?
Prayer, as a lifestyle, it is not very popular now a days. Forget about fasting! If I only tap prayer with the tip of my toes every once in a while and never venture to go deeper, I'm missing a vital part of my christian life .
Kids understand the power of prayer. If there is a sickness or a situation they are uncomfortable with, they want to pray. I remember the time when hurricane Ivan struck Pensacola. We left town for 2 days and came back to chaos and no electricity. We were thankful somebody lent us a generator to use, so we loaded it in our truck and filled it with gas just to find out it didn't work.The thing was dead. It was old an rusted and it just didn't want to work anymore. After what it look like hours of banging parts, greasing it and pulling the cord 100 times, still didn't work. My husband was very angry. My oldest child was six at the time. I remember him walking up to us putting his little hand on the generator and saying: "let's pray for this to start!" So he did. We pulled the cord once, pull the cord twice...brrrrrr... it worked!!! My son's eyes open so big and then started jumping up and down, up and down. God answered his prayer immediately and he was excited! God met him at his five year old pure faith and moved. He went for weeks praying for everything and expecting an immediate response.
Sometimes God will answer prayers immediately (don't you love that?). Sometimes it requires time. And it's during these times when our faith gets tested. At this point we have to options: we keep pressing forward and grow or quit.
My son is ten now and he has learned that prayer can be long, uncomfortable, inconvenient at times and off "business hours". He has learned that some times battles can start at five in the morning or at eleven at night. Uncomfortable in the flesh has make him more comfortable in the spirit. He is still a kid, independent, wild and adventurous, but he knows how to pick up his weapons when the battle is raging thus learning to be a warrior!!
God lives in the uncomfortable and He wants you there with him. Prayer, the type of prayer that changes you and changes a city is uncomfortable. Sometimes it will wake you up at three in the morning, sometimes it will not let you go to bed at ten pm. Psalms will stir up your heart and make you cry. Judges will give you hope. Ezra, Nehemiah will put you in the wall. The whole world of God will become more alive to you than never before when you pray!
2 Chronicles 7:14, " If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray......"
When I humble before God, I'm recognize that my abilities, talents and gifts, are empty and will lead me to an empty road without Him. I need to connect all of these things to Him to affect change in my life,family, church and city and that is what prayer does.
Generator prayers stir your faith. Uncomfortable prayers grow it.
It is my hope and prayer that in these last days before our fast is over, when our flesh is tired and wants to give up, your spirit will soar with a desire to stay in His presence until it's inconveniently uncomfortable and grow deeper in your relationship with Him.
I challenge you to ask God to wake you up at an inconvenient time to meet Him and spend time with Him (HE will!!!)
We are almost there... Keep moving forward!!
Karina
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