Have you ever had a phrase or thought and it was just beyond your reach? Such is the case with this blog topic. It's as though the time wasn't right for me to write this blog entry or any other before today.
Prayer is critical to our walk of faith and our relationship with Jesus and our Father. I confess that my time in my prayer closet isn't as consistent as I'd like. My day is filled with opportunities to pray and I do take advantage of these and recommend you do likewise. We have the capacity to "pray without ceasing" (~1 Thessalonians 5:17).
We have thoughts flowing in and out of our minds and hearts constantly. Mixed in with the "business" of the day are these opportunities to have connecting prayer with our Father through Jesus. By choosing to pray often throughout our day, we invite Jesus to actively participate in our day.
Back to the stumbling block or mental block that had stayed my mind. I was searching for the time the disciples couldn't cast a demon out of a child. Finally, a few days ago God in His mercy allowed me to catch the verse. In Mark 9:14-29, is the healing of this boy and the disciples wondered that they could not. This passage is referred to for "All Things Are Possible" and with God they are indeed possible.
What has always struck me with the passage is in the final verse, "This kind can come out only by prayer." (NIV) In the passage linked above, the NASB translation is, "This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer." Not only do we have example after example of Jesus going off alone to pray and pray often. Here HE shows us the whole weight of the matter of prayer.
I'm challenged daily to stay connected through prayer and to increasingly lay all matters in my life before Christ. I believe our relationship with our Savior and Father is desperate for this ongoing contact and so for me it is necessary.
Prayer is the one thing we can embrace always and at any time.
Blessings & Peace
~Robert
Robert,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. If you don't mind, I may use some of this information in Haiti next month. The planned theme for the Youth Retreat is Communication with God, with key topics being God's Word (the Bible) and PRAYER. I still have much to learn on this topic myself. And like you, the more I study on it, the more convinced I am of its vital importance to the Christian walk.
Thanks for sharing,
Mark