Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Joshua 11-15
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 6:5-8
Jesus: Likewise, when you pray, do not be as hypocrites who love to pray loudly at synagogue or on street corners—their concern is to be seen by men. They have already earned their reward. When you pray, go into a private room, close the door, and pray unseen to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not go on and on, excessively and strangely like the outsiders; they think their verbosity will let them be heard by their deities. Do not be like them. Your prayers need not be labored or lengthy or grandiose—for your Father knows what you need before you ever ask Him.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Prayer is such an important discipline for the Christian. I’m afraid few of us really practice prayer the way Jesus wants us to, though. If you examine His life in the scriptures, you find He made a habit of praying. He prayed early in the morning and late at night. He prayed before every major event in His life. He prayed before various tasks He performed. Jesus prayed all the time. It was His lifeline to His heavenly Father. Paul admonishes us to pray continually.
As much as we see prayer emphasized in scripture, we do a poor job of emulating Christ and His Apostles in spending quality and quantities of time in prayer. I hear too many say, “I don’t know how to pray.” But that’s just an excuse. Everyone know how to pray. If you know how to talk or think or listen or communicate in any form, you can pray. That’s what prayer is, after all, is communication with God. We listen, we talk, we hear His voice, we read His word, we enter into a meaningful relationship with the God of the universe. It’s really that simple.
God doesn’t need flowery words or special phrases for us to communicate with Him. In fact, I think those are really a turn off for Him. I think God wants to hear our heart. He wants to know our innermost feelings. He knows them anyway, but He wants us to articulate them to Him. Why do you think that is?
When you think about it? We are at our most vulnerable when our raw emotions show. That’s when it’s easiest for God to reach us, to influence our decisions, to share His heart with us. So God wants to hear our emotions, joy, sorrow, anger, doubt, faith, peace, comfort, frustration. He knows what we are experiencing at any given moment, but He wants us to express those things to Him. The older I get, the more I begin to understand what He is trying to do to me during those struggling times of prayer.
I learned long ago as a strategic planner that the most difficult part of planning and finding solutions for an army or a business is first defining the problem. What I’ve found in my prayer life is when God lets me struggle with my toughest issues, I learn to better define the real problem. Sometimes, what I think is the problem, isn’t. Sometimes, I ask God to fix something when what really needs fixed is me or my attitude. It takes me a while to get through the struggle with God to figure out the real issue isn’t my brother or his attitude. It isn’t something my brother has done or a direction he has taken, but rather the issue is my attitude and my desire getting in the way. Sometimes God has to let me hear his voice in a number of ways in my prayer life to help me understand that I am the problem. I need to change. I must make corrections in the direction my path is going.
Sometimes the path is clear and God answers quickly. More often, the path is not so clear and I must learn those tough lessons He has for me. Sometimes the path seems dark and forbidding, but He nudges me along until I finally break through what seems like a dense jungle and burst into the clearing on the other side. Then He lets me see those clean waters of Psalms 23.
Those struggles and prayer sessions are private, though. They are the wrestling matches between me and God as He pulls me further along on this path of righteousness. Some of those things I want to share only with Him in the closet because it’s there that He helps me discover the greatest joy and lifts me to the greatest heights as I give myself to Him and learn of His love when I push through the problem of me. God does answer prayer. Not always like I want Him to, but always. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes wait. But He always answers.
If your prayers are always ones you want others to hear, I can assure you, you’re not going deep enough with God. He doesn’t want to leave you where you are. He wants to dig deep into your soul and make you like Him. That takes major surgery and sometimes He doesn’t use much anesthesia! The end is worth it, though. Trust Him!
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