What Are You Reading? Prayers of Honesty

well hey ladies happy monday morning i hope that you're having a good start to your week and um i'm going to go ahead and make a slight little confession because today we're going to be looking at a passage of scripture that has actually been pulled from a devotional this devotional is by jackie hope harry it's her newest book a friend gifted this to me it's called Upon Waking. And I'm not that far into it, and it's just been fantastic. It's one of those really great kind of appetizers that goes along with your full meal of reading the Bible. So it's a really good kind of get you started, and upon waking, wake you up to encounter the Lord. And so there was a day, one of these days, and I've read it about a week ago, and I've just kind of been stuck on everything that she said in this devotional. And so if you don't know how Jackie perry writes she's kind of poetic with how she writes and um which i love that but the devotional is taken off of ephesians 6 verse 18 and i'm going to read that to you it says praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end keep alert with all perseverance making supplication for all the saints and that was the esv version and i'm going to read you the csb which she has in this devotional pray at all times in the spirit with every prayer and request and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints so she goes on to talk about busyness and how we can get so busy and forget prayer and um not only does she say that well this scripture has we are told we are to pray at all times in the spirit but we also have an example of this in jesus himself and so she begins this devotion talking about you know how many different things we have on the calendar you know how many different things between um husband children you know friends family um you know just even things around the house i mean think about laundry can i get an amen to the sheer fact that i believe sometimes it is impossible to get the clothes in one day to go from washer to dryer and then into the basket and then folded i can do all of that it's not a problem but there is something i i promise just within me that just cannot get those clothes to go folded back to the closet i don't know what it is about me but maybe one of you maybe somebody out there understands my problem but so anyways that's an aside but maybe i need some prayer for that that's a complete aside but she talks about the busyness that we have and i want you to listen to to these next words that she talks about about jesus being busy he was never in a hurry never in a hurry think about it he's never rushing in scripture he's never running from one thing to the next and it doesn't say you know they ran across the road to here and there he's never in a rush something we could all learn right but i want you to listen to these words and if you're not driving or something like that i know i may not be the the world's best reader, but I want you to just kind of close your eyes and take in these words by Jackie Hill Perry. She says, truth is Jesus was busy too. The father had business Jesus came to handle. A woman at a well to give water to, a Lazarus to raise, streets to straighten, wine to turn, bodies to heal. Even at rest when a few waves prompted the disciples to wake him, he got to work by speaking peace. And yet, at no point in any gospel do you see him neglect prayer. He made it his business to meet with the Father, sometimes in the morning and other times all the way through the night, often before making decisions and creating miracles. Even on his dying day, he met with God about a cup, and while it was poured, he spoke with God on a cross. There was no way in heaven or on earth that anything would ever keep Jesus from meeting with the Father. Time has never been the reason anyone doesn't pray. The heart is. Now I want you to listen to this. Prayerlessness is almost always a humility issue. The natural consequence of a heart that tends to believe it is good without God. Yes, you may be busy, but it's possible that you are also proud. Pride is the true enemy of your prayer life. Pride deludes us into thinking we're self-sufficient. And then she goes on to say, so then to become more prayerful, we have to be humble. To be humble, we need to be honest. Each morning, tell the truth. The truth being you are needy, even when it doesn't feel like it. Then turn toward God and pray. And so I hope that that kind of hits you in the feels like it has me the past few days and that perhaps my um oh you know I don't need to set aside time to really dig into the word with God um or not digging into his word but digging really deep into prayer with the Lord right now maybe that's actually a pride issue rather than just me thinking that I'm busy because the reality is I'm not too busy for God That's the reality. And so I hope that this week, maybe as you go about your day, as you take that time in the morning to sit down with the Lord, that you just come to him humbly and just ask him to help you with your prayer life first and to be reminded that Jesus himself never neglected prayer with the Father. He communicated with him always, and he set aside time privately to go and speak with him. And so that would be my encouragement this week is that we would set aside time to go and pray with the Father and to do it in an honest way saying, even though you may be in a great season of life, even though everything is going really great, I still need you. Or we might be in a difficult season and we still need him. And so just take that into mind. Really just chew on those words for a little while that um Jackie has and again use this these videos as just a launching pad for your time with the Lord because you need to meet with him you need to spend time with him you need to talk with him and you need to pray and you need to listen to him and so I hope that that encourages you this morning and that um you will learn like I am learning as we struggle to learn together how to be humble how to be honest and how to pray and to not neglect it and um to have our hearts in a place of humility where prayer becomes our first reaction rather than our secondary response. So I hope that that encourages you today and go enjoy your time with the Lord. Thanks so much.

Originally published at warren.church.