When Lightening Strikes...

I'm not sure yet whether I love it or hate it when God smacks me in the face... Well, it happened not 10 minutes ago and I wanted to share... I've decided to do some reading this week and as I was reading about PRAYER, I re-realized how important prayer really is...and how little I do it.

Prayer is essential to any believing Christian, but especially to the "pastor", which really means shepherd, someone who leads others. If a shepherd isn't praying, where is he leading the people following him? I'm gonna be real when I say I don't pray nearly as often as I should. You may be saying "oh, OK...don't give me fake humility" and I say, "NO really! I haven't been on my knees!"

This being real thing isn't easy and it hurts to admit ones junk. I was extremely convicted by my lack of prayer. I realized for instance that sometimes, I just write my youth group lessons, without praying before I start writing them. What is that!? I also realized that I haven't prayed over my manuscript for my book, which is supposed to lead people into a deeper, more authentic relationship with God and others. Sure I prayed when I wrote the chapters, but have I prayed beyond that? NO!

I'm just really convicted. I felt God whisper to me: "Yes, you can hear my voice in the inspirational books you read, the devotionals you read and MOST definitely in my Word...but are you praying? Are you listening to my voice in your ear? Are you hearing my voice in what you read and applying it to your heart or simply reading for head knowledge?!"

It was there I realized that recently, I've been reading without prayer, without asking God to REVEAL himself...I was simply looking for JUST a cerebral experience, content to leave Him and his voice as a fixture to look at and think about applying to the text.

Let me be completely honest with you...prayer sometimes gets boring to me. I get twitchy, thinking about what's next, where I need to be, what I need to do. I don't sit quietly for a long time very well. However, I know that once I get BEYOND my twitches, once I forget about what's next, God meets me and sometimes I could lay on my face for hours...yet, it's HARD for me to get to that point. It's TOUGH to just be, just listen and just wait.

This is REAL.