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Prayerfulness

Sep 21, 2009 Print This Post

This is the continuation of my week long series through the 8 Marks of a Sacrificial Followers we have been talking about at Riv. The goal of this blog post is to create a forum where you can give and receive suggestions that help you as you grow in these areas.

Today, we are talking about

Prayerfulness

A Sacrificial Follower of Jesus engages in prayer, which is a consistent, authentic, intimate conversation with God about all aspects of his life. Here’s a snippet of a teaching I gave on this topic a week or so ago:

This is an area I have struggled with in my life. I read excellent articles like this one on prayer in the New Testament and I am challenged to pray, but I feel like I fall flat. I want to be a “prayer warrior” but fall terribly short of that ideal. I am surrounded by people who are great at this and it is an uphill battle for me.

I think the biggest reason is I have carried unrealistic expectations of what prayerfulness is. I have imagined it to be someone who sits down for a long period of time each day and wrestles with God about what they are dealing with.

Over time, I am learning to let go of this image of a prayerful person (as accurate as it may be for some people) and to embrace a different picture that is true to Scripture and also true to how God has wired me. Here are a few things I do to help me in my prayer life:

• I keep a list of prayer requests. I used to try to keep a “prayer journal” where I wrote lots of stuff about what I pray for and how God answers my prayers. That literally never lasted more than a week. Instead, I just keep a list of prayer requests. If you ask me to pray for you, I add you to my list and I take it out several times a week to pray through.
• I walk and pray. I am not very good at sitting still so I walk around when I pray. In good weather, I’m outside; in bad weather, I’m inside.
• I pray throughout my day. As I face different situations, I just stop and pray for a few seconds. When I read email from people, I stop and pray for a few seconds. When I surf Facebook, I stop and pray for a few seconds.
• I subscribe to the RivChurch prayer requests and pray for them as soon as I read them.

So, what practical suggestions would you add?

Tags: prayer