Facilitation

Link: Core Values
Focus: Prayer (6/7)
Day: 14/95
Pathway summary: Being faith-filled, fervent, continual, and heartfelt in my expressions, petitions, and supplications to God.
Justification: (2 Timothy 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 6:5-13; Mark 9:23)
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Setup:

What would a life filled with an abundance of prayer look like? Is it possible to have an excess of conversation with God? 

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Prep:

Earlier I considered the aggregate impact of not praying and made the claim that most of the problems we have as individuals (or otherwise) stem from insufficient prayer coverage. This is the counter to that.

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Execution:

I started with prayer and began studying scripture for aspects to prayer I may have missed with the intent of capturing what a life-fully-enriched-with-prayer would look like.
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Day 14 Conclusions / Thoughts

Cursory observations and conclusions regarding prayer from scripture:

• Matthew 6 is absolutely rife with content and context
• Romans 8 teaches us that we need help praying
• We are to pray without fainting (stopping), pray for ourselves and others, and pray without the intent of being rewarded
• That prayer doesn't necessarily protect you from temptation (in fact you're to guard against it when you're praying)
• Righteousness comes from praying
• Usage of prayer to share one's faults can confer healing
• Most of the profound capabilities of believers resulted simply from faithful people praying

So the concept of righteousness is close to my heart - I've prayed over and dwelt on "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." And I've wondered long days at who is righteous.  It seemed to me, before this bible study, that nobody knows if they're righteous - but that, if you are righteous, those items over which you pray will be impacted. Not because a righteous person is better - but, rather, the righteous person were likely given the desires of their heart AND God has made provision for those in that domain to succeed.

I think the heart of the impact of this much prayer is simply captured in the word "sufficient". If we are asking for how much, God has answered in two ways. The one, in the command to "pray without ceasing" - sufficient would be "constantly". The second answer is one supplied by Jesus in response to Peter - if you're keeping track, every single offence / need for prayer corresponds to 490 times you are to forgive/pray for such things.  Thus, isn't about accurate prayer accounting (in spite of how interesting a prayer accountant would be). It is about prayer density.

Which leads me to the initial heart of the post - prayer is a facilitation mechanism.  Through prayer we can see God's promises fulfilled, we have access to miracles, and we can have our heart transforms to be more Christ-like.  I find this last profound. In one fell swoop, sufficient, earnest prayer provides the ability to have a changed heart AND the confidence to understand we can be of use to God.

How do you renew your mind, be actually transformed, draw close to Christ, know His will, directly and indirectly impact loved ones and complete strangers, and acquire tools which will help you personally resolve conflict, acquire guidance and sufficiency on how to seek God?

Pray

Ought

Link: Core Values
Focus: Prayer (1/7)
Day: 09/95
Pathway summary: Being faith filled, fervent, continual, and heartfelt in my expressions, petitions, and supplications to God..
Justification: (2 Timothy 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 6:5-13; Mark 9:23)
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Setup:

So now I'm in the midst of a prayer study. What does scripture say about prayer? What is prayer?

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Prep:

I am going to start with the archetypal "Lord's Prayer" - that is Matthew 6:5-12

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Execution:

I started off praying - and feeling like I was a day late. God helped me have peace about my pacing and focus on the subject.  I also kept falling asleep - which is a reminder that prayer (in particular prayer without a purpose save itself) has always been a weakness of mine.  Good reminder that this is a fight and an area to shore.

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Day 9 Conclusions / Thoughts

My manual review of the Lord's Prayer brought to mind the areas, for me, which I've noted for a while - no vain repetition, being noticed for prayer is not the point, intimacy matters, how most of the Lord's prayer isn't about us at all - but about giving God glory.  And how poorly I tend to model this last part in my own prayers.  It is typical of me to basically talk to God and ask Him for stuff - like I'm in prison most of the time but sometimes I get to phone a friend - and the only person I all is God - but the only thing I have to talk about is stuff I want.

I think that's what this week will be for me - being aware and mindful of how often my thoughts are about myself.  In fact, this is something I was recently lauding myself for how ... (sadly) ... much I thought about God. I mean seriously, how egocentric do you have to be to give yourself a humility pin?

I've been thinking about the nature of prayer today - how prayer is basically us talking to God. Sometimes it is petitioning; but, it doesn't have to be.  And the nature of the dialog is definitively indicative of how we perceive God. If we see Him as a favored uncle, then we'll share some sorts of things and not others. If we see Him as a best friend, we'll share nearly everything - if not everything. If we see Him as a functional spouse (the hardest, arguably, in some ways), we'd literally share everything - and perhaps make it hard (in the best possible way) to become married to a brick-and-mortar human.  Because no human can possibly measure up to God.  Um, except maybe where hugs are concerned.

So prayer is about our walk with God. It's about our own spiritual growth - and what we even recognize needing to be fixed. It's about another layer of intimacy and being open (and available to be hurt) in a domain in which many of us have no mindful discernment.  It's about how every single thing we do, every thought we think, every action we didn't take, and every gesture we convey are all forms of prayer. Which is how one "prays without ceasing" - because otherwise we'd never have the opportunity to stop to breathe.

If nothing else, prayer today has helped me realize how much more I need God.

* The post title is a reminder about how I ought to pray - and how I often do not

Focus

Link: Core Values
Focus: Holy Scripture (3/7)
Day: 03/95
Pathway summary: Study of the Word of God with expectation of Holy Spirit inspired revelation.
Justification: (Deuteronomy 6:6-9; Psalm 119; John 16:7-15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17)
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Setup:
Continuing the Bible study on Love. I am regularly seeing myself be sweeter. And I can directly see the impact on my household.
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Prep:
I sense that today's evaluation of Love is to focus on how Scriptural tenets appear in practice.

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Execution:
I started off with research and started to really delve in - when I realized I hadn't prayed.  After quickly praying, I continued and realized my focus was awry - instead of practical applications of Love, the study began to focus on how to ensure your focus is correct. In particular, I used about half of Matthew 6.

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Day 3 Conclusions / Thoughts

This Bible study has been interesting in that, unlike almost every other read-the-Bible-iteratively approach I've been actually excited and interested in what God would reveal.  And it was thus a beautiful time to be brought a little low. Because my focus was off, my focus on focus caused me to lose focus. Ahem.

So I prayed, asking God for forgiveness, and started anew.

I began with the idea that "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" was a great way to apply the tenets of love - a quick Bible search revealed that it only showed up in one place ... which happened to have applications, focus remediation, the Lord's Prayer, and several points about perseverance and rewards.  Leave it to God to take my focus failure and teach me something as well as nudging me in the direction which would actually answer my real question.  Ya'ay God.

Focus is terribly important because it is an easy way for Love to kind of leak out of our perception. In so much as motive and attitude provide solid footing for actions of Love, focus provides for the direction of our footfalls.  You still need a feedback system to ensure the attitude and motive stay aligned to God's intent - and focus offers leading-edge feedback.

So my call to action is to try putting these three into place all throughout the day - as regards to relations with my family, my co-workers, my clients, my neighbors, and any strangers I meet.  And I claim that any success I have in this regard will be due to God's work in me - whether over the course of my life up to this point or the changes He has wrought over the last three days,

I look forward to seeing what God has for me next!