As we prepare to begin a month of prayer and fasting on July, I wanted to share this portion of a devotion with you from “The Promise of Answered Prayer” by Jim Cymbala.
Prayer cannot truly be taught by principles and seminars and symposiums. It has to be born out of a whole environment of felt need. If I say, “I ought to pray,” I will soon run out of motivation and quit; the flesh is too strong. I have to be driven to pray.
Yes, the roughness of inner city life has pressed us to pray. We you have alcoholics trying to sleep in the back of your building, when your teenagers are getting assaulted and knifed on the way to youth meetings, when you bump into transvestites in the lobby after church, you can’t escape your need for God. According to a recent Columbia University study, twenty-one cents of every dollar New Yorkers pay in city taxes is spent trying to cope with the effects of smoking, drinking, and drug abuse.
Cymbala hits on a major factor in the development of each of our prayer lives: the more we sense a need to pray, the more we want to pray. In the midst of adversity, when facing situations beyond our control, we are driven to our knees. Conversely, when we feel in control, our senses tell us there is no need to seek God’s face, and unfortunately we live in a time/place that we feel in control. It would be nice if we never faced hardships, but this July, I hope you feel the need to pray like never before.
2 comments:
What do you mean driven to our knees? I've been on my face many times! In our readings in Numbers I have noticed how many times Moses and Aaron fell facedown to the Lord. I am expectantly waiting to see what God has in store for us individually and as a church!
Yes, several are on their face praying...however, the majority of the church is not. Sadly, many have no desire to change their comfortable relationship with God...I pray they are driven.
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