Tuesday, January 26, 2016

The Importance of Prayer

"I'll pray for you..." How many times have we said these words, or words like them? Prayer is often looked at as such a simple thing. A quick and thoughtful uttering from our lips to God's ears. When we don't know what else to say, we say we'll pray. But how long do we spend in prayer? In our hurried, everyday lives, what priority do we make prayer? The average Christian prays 60 seconds a day. If that's not a testimony of what an afterthought prayer has become in this modern generation...I don't know what is!

At the end of 2016, God convicted me about my own prayer time. As a work at home mom to 5 kids and a woman married to a husband with a high-demand job and involved in ministry...my days can feel so rushed. Sometimes I feel like it's all I can do to catch my breath. God called me to slow down this year. To take time to spend in His presence. Specifically, "get your house in order."

When I began to seek God about what he meant about getting things in order...the Holy Spirit impressed on me that a foundation of that would be prayer. Prayer and communication with God. Building time from the ground up in our lives spent in His presence. Let me tell you...prayer is powerful. It is transformative. It isn't for the weak. It isn't for the hurried. It is for me and for you.

Today I took God at His word. I stopped in my busy day and called my oldest child into the study and we began to pray. I set the tone with worship music playing in the background. And we began to just speak and proclaim whatever the Spirit put on our hearts. God showed up. He met us where we were. My youngest, who has been fighting sleep lately just sat back in my arms with very little fuss. He fell asleep in my arms as we just cried out to God. My 10 year old son came into the room. I spoke words of confirmation over his life about the calling God placed on him from before the time he was born. My son is very sensitive to the Holy Spirit. He began to weep under the anointing and prophesy. My daughter also broke down and had a word from God about having a spirit of fear, and trusting Him more.

I prayed for the things God laid on my heart. One thing specifically being a new house. We have a lot of kids ya'll. We need a big house. An even bigger house than we already have. I prayed and asked God to give us a bigger house. We've been working on our house we are living in now to get all the repairs that need made done and improvements. We have an awesome house. But we know we need to sell it in the next year or so.

Well, wouldn't you know it but not 10 minutes after we had spent time in prayer, Phil comes and tells me that the man who had come to deliver a utility building to our property today told him that he wanted a house like ours and wouldn't mind buying it from us in 6 months to a year. WHAT. Come on now...tell me God doesn't answer prayer and give confirmation?????? All glory to God!

Whatever he wants with this life, I want God to have it. God showed Himself true to me and He just continues to bless and increase my faith. I challenge you to spend time with God this week. Don't spend 60 seconds. Spend 30 minutes or 3 hours! God is moving and He's just waiting to bless obedience.

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