Prayer Time

     After battling a minor cold and a couple technical difficulties with the alarm clock, I am back on track with my alarm. Life right now is very busy but fruitful, just the way I like it! Yesterday I was talking about some of the changes I've seen the Lord work in my life. One of the more recent, sort of, tools He has used is our church transition. We've started going back to a church that we were attending years ago. It's been years since we've see the people at the church; things have changed a lot and for the better.
Up until lately, I've sporadically spent time in prayer, being faithful for several months at a time, and then reciprocating in the other direction for similar lengths of time. I had an outline of sorts from the Lord's Prayer to use for times in prayer, a list of different categories such as praise, confession, thankfulness, etc. It was hard to stay on track in the long run though, because I knew I had the right elements of prayer, but it just didn't seem like it was coming out the way it should. At the church we are currently attending, the men take prayer very seriously and lead the congregation regularly. Their prayers were the answer to my wandering thoughts; it only took a couple times hearing them pray to nail down exactly was wrong with or at least missing from my personal prayer life. I previously had the desire to pray, the dedication, and the knowledge that it was a necessary part of spiritual well-being; but now I had an example, the key ingredient I had been missing. Since then I've added praying back Scripture to the Lord, praise for not only what I see God doing in the present but for the multitude of wonderful works in the ages past, particular emphasis on finding ways to praise God in all of Scripture for His most wonderful work of our salvation, preparing for prayer and gathering content for prayer by reading the selections from the Word prior to prayer, increased energy and concentration while praying, and a greater sense of identity with the church as a whole. Looking back, I see myself as a field completely fertilized, but without crops; the men of this church have provided the seed. The Lord plants neither too soon nor too late, only on time. Thanks be to God that He fertilized and planted me this early in life, so that I did not have to miss out until a later date.
     This evening our guys' group met. I was a little late because I wanted to finish washing the dishes for my mom since she had spent quite some time in the kitchen today preparing meals for my dad and our dinner. We all hung out and talked for a while and then got to it with the Bible study. Tonight's study had more information in it than any other lesson I've compiled in my life, and it was a great time sharing what the Lord had taught me as I studied the text on my own and with the aid of a good number of online commentaries (see this website for a listing of some of them, that's a great site for Bible study btw). Also see my post "Revelation 2:1-7 - Ephesus (Lesson)" on the Revelation blog for a pre-composed transcript of the lesson.
     Things I'm thankful for today: 1) such amazing weather for this time of the year, I can't remember what cold is like, 2) rain-free days, although the recent rain was needed, 3) a big desk to fit my multitasking bent, 4) a great keyboard on my laptop, and 5) my Aunt who gave me the last bit of inspiration I needed to start a blog.
     Today's joke:
"I've never flown before," a nervous old lady told the pilot. "You will bring me down safely, won't you?"
"All I can say, ma'am," said the pilot, "is that I've never left anyone up there yet!"

Joke Credit: the 365 DAY Clean Joke book