So some time back the Lord showed me that as a leader in the church I (and my fellow leaders) have to have an effective and sustained personal prayer life as well as a prayer life as a team. We then kick started our prayer life within the team and we meet weekly to pray. As a result our effectiveness in terms of real measurable results as far as spiritual is concerned, has gone up 100 fold.
Now I am loving time in the word, it is meat to my bones. I am loving studying the word and I am loving our times of prayer at the church, but I have to say that prayer on my own in the morning is tougher. I can pray easily enough for a few minutes – keeping in mind that the purpose of prayer is not to spend all the time asking God for stuff or to bless me. The word shows me that God wants to bless me and in fact in Christ I already have all spiritual blessings. So, I am trying to pray without doing the typical christian prayer thing which is “God help me to do this…, God I need that…, God bless this…, God provide that…etc”
I discovered this morning that a great way to pray is to pray the word. Just like I took Romans 5:1-5 which I really meditated on all day yesterday, and I just prayed through it. Suddenly my prayers had life and form and I was able to pray boldly and confidently through the passage and in doing so I was having communion with God, which is what prayer is all about.