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When it became clear that Beth had arthritis and not an injury, I stood strong for a few days, and then fell into a pit of grief. And I couldn't pray. Words wouldn't come, though I could kiss her knees, or touch her knees, and plead with the Lord in my spirit. My husband experienced the same thing.
We'd been silenced before, in 2000 and in 2005, with miscarriages. No words, just tears and blank stares, groans of the spirit, and needing to be held by the Lord.
We all experience things in this life that silence us for a time, and for the prayer warrior, it can be challenging to jump into disciplined prayer again, after a time away.
Like so many things in the Christian life, we must do it out of obedience. Obedience is a powerful way we can worship God.
Whether it is reading the Bible regularly, praying, helping the poor, raising our children to fear the Lord, telling others about Jesus, staying with an annoying or sinful spouse.....whatever. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes hard, but we do it as an act of worship. We just do it.
Our level of obedience, our level of worship, will be judged someday, and there will be rewards in heaven for a steadfast love for our Savior.
If you've walked away from prayer, go back. Remember your first love. Jesus.
And be blessed.
"I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach; A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." -H. MacGregor
Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. --Oswald Chambers
There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. --Brother Lawrence
Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. --Oswald Chambers
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear friend. Tell God your troubles, that God may comfort you; tell God your joys, that God may sober them; tell God your longings, that God may purify them; tell God your dislikes, that God may help you conquer them; talk to God of your temptations, that God may shield you from them: show God the wounds of your heart, that God may heal them. If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. Talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideration say just what you think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God. --Francois Fenelon
Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you "my beloved daughter," "my beloved son," "my beloved child." To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. --Henri Nouwen
We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life is he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God within him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer...Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. --Oswald Chambers
The Church has not yet touched the fringe of the possibilities of intercessory prayer. Her largest victories will be witnessed when individual Christians everywhere come to recognize their priesthood unto God and day by day give themselves unto prayer. --John R. Mott
The Church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men…Men of prayer." --E. M. Bounds
We lean to our own understanding, or we bank on service and do away with prayer, and consequently by succeeding in the external we fail in the eternal, because in the eternal we succeed only by prevailing prayer. --Oswald Chambers
When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy. --Corrie Ten Boom
Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him?....Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. --Oswald Chambers
Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?-- Corrie Ten Boom
I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go. -- Abraham Lincoln
Some people pray just to pray and some people pray to know God. --Andrew Murray
More prayer quotes here.
To read more of my prayer journey, check out Into a Life of Prayer: A Journey Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
To read even more, check out The Prayer Warrior Life part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5, part 6, Part 7, 8, 9, 10
A sweet friend, Amy, wrote guests posts for us, telling of her prayer journey: Vol. 1, and Vol. 2, and Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5
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