Prayer

God in heaven, you are holy and deserve to be honored above all things.

I pray that the Kingdom where you are the supreme ruler over all will come soon.

I pray that whatever you desire will happen here on Earth to bring you glory just as it does in heaven.

Please provide for my physical needs and help me know the difference between my needs and my wants.

Please forgive me, and I ask this knowing that it requires me to forgive others as you are willing to forgive me.

God you know my weaknesses and I ask you to give me strength so I do not fall into my temptations. Use your strength to deliver me from the power of Satan.

Amen

Jesus gave us the great example for prayer. The passage above is my version of what Jesus said in Matthew 6: 9-13. Are you using this wonderful gift we have been given. Are you taking time to communicate with the Most High God?

The reason I bring this up is that I was reminded about prayer from my son Gideon the other day. We pray with the boys each night. We have Gideon spend time thanking God for whatever he can think of, which sometimes is a little funny. Example: “Thank you God for my knees, Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for T-Rex.” So even though it can be a little funny, we still want them to get into the habit of praying. We are also working on teaching how to pray at meals. The other afternoon we were playing in Gideon’s room and he was talking quietly. I couldn’t hear what he was saying until the end. “And thank you God for Jesus, Amen!” Yes his Amen has an exclamation point. He puts a lot of expression and excitement into his amen. I made a big deal out of this almost inaudible prayer. I called him over and hugged him and talked about how great it was that he was praying. I don’t even know what he was praying for, which is ok, because the exciting news was that he was praying.

This convicted me a little bit, because I realized that what I focus on for prayer life for my son is that he prays at a meal and he prays at bed time, but I haven’t worked hard at instilling the idea that he can pray whenever and I haven’t been a good model of that. Now I know that he is only two and I can’t expect him to have a 24/7 prayer life right now, however if I don’t start modeling the right prayer life he might give up his random mid afternoon prayer of thanksgiving that he gave the other day. I don’t want that.

A couple of years ago I started a book called Soul Revolution. I say started, because I never got around to finishing it. It did have some great stuff in it though. The main focus the author was getting at was the need for constant prayer. He asked his church and anyone who would take part in the challenge to try to pray on the hour ever hour. Just stop and take a few minutes to thank God for where you are and ask God to use you where you are. Ask him for his will for your life for that minute. I did this for a while and unfortunately have gotten out of the practice. But in such a short time of talking with God on a regular basis, I felt like there was a stronger connection. I felt his direction for my life. I felt more relaxed about my day and less stressed about the things I was going through even though they were stressful situations.

So I am going to, and I encourage you to, do a check up on your prayer life. Try to pray more often and see what great things God can do.