24/7 Prayer

Today at LEFC and for this week has been 24 hour prayer, 7 days a week for one full week. I did not sign up for a shift but instead I am the watchmen for all of Saturday. What this entails is that I show up if someone forgets, make sure people show up and try and make sure it runs smoothly. Well sure enough guess what happened? Someone did not show up it just happened to be everyone's favorite shift 3am :(

I cannot say I was exactly excited to get out of bed, borrow a car and drive down to LEFC. I was tired, frustrated, annoyed and overall upset I had to get out of my warm bed. By the time I got there though I prayed that God would take away the problems I was facing, would take away my frustration and give me a soft heart. That is always an interesting prayer to ask because usually we ask for forgiveness, for something to happen, or to help us with struggles. To ask for God to give you a soft heart is a pretty fun thing.

The moment I walked into the prayer room my heart was "broken" I do not like that term but the walls I had put up had broken down. The walls of frustration, annoyance was ultimately ways of getting distracted. The prayer room was a great idea: there was a cross to put up our struggles, posters with freedom, reproducing and networking to put our prayer through that, a place to share what God is to us, a place to thank God for what we have, prayer for missionaries and the list goes on. Quickly those walls I had built down were destroyed.

I was only there for about 45 mins because I was only covering someone's shift but it was a great 45 minutes. Especially through this week where I have been feeling a large amount of struggles. It was nice to be in prayer and reconnect a little bit with God in everything. Today even though I slept less, was woken up in the middle of the night, I was more relaxed then I have been in days. Funny how that works eh? Prayer is a great thing and something I want to work on is spending time each day in indimate prayer with God.

What I mean by that is not just telling God what I want, or what I need, but also listening to him. Sometimes I think we spend so much time telling God we need and forget to actually listen to what God is telling us we need!

The Journey

This will be my first post of many hopefully and this blog is going to be dedicated to my Journey in God. Anyone who follows me on my other blog knows that over this last year I have gone through a fair amount of 'life' stresses. One of my goals this year was to get involved in a Church with a higher goal of becoming a 'better' Christian. It is no easy task, it seems like the simplest thing in the world. We are called to be 'like Christ' it is only that simple? Well I guess for me it is just a little difficult? I am not saying that I am a horrible Christian, but I do have my struggles, I have my faults and I have my faith problems. I am a firm believer though, I am rooted in the bible and have secured my faith through doubts, fears and questioning.


There are a few things I think we all struggle with and these few verse can encompass my 'problems' in my journey. First is this:

James 2:17  "So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless."

This is one of biggest challenges I deal with. I am quiet a good 'talker', I can usually sweet talk or charm my way out of problems. I can usually convince people of how great I am or what I can accomplish and over talk. But something I am learning is that if you do not follow up your words with actions people are not going to respect you. Same thing goes with faith, I could sit here and tell you about how great of a Christian I am, that I have no struggles and that each day I seek after God with no problems. Well if my actions do not follow up with this, what is the point? My faith would be dead if I did that.


The next area is found in James as well (you will see a trend that I love the book of James) it comes in:

James 1:19-21 "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you."

This verse will always be something that our culture struggles and I struggle with. We are always so quick to speak and express our opinion yet we do not always take the time to listen to the people around us. We are quick to get angry and yet we (including me) are so lagged to actually understand and forgive. Not all the time but this creeps up in my life. I am getting better with listening, slow to become angry and speaking but I am no where I should be yet. The ladder part of the verse is something I am still trying to fully understand. Yes, I understand the word but everything behind it is something that I continue to try and understand. The statement is SO SIMPLE and yet so hard to put in practice.


Lastly is a verse the I recently read and has quickly become a pillar and forever will be a pillar in my faith:

1 Corinthians 13:13 "Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love."

Something I struggle with from my past was this idea of faith, hope and love. When we tend to go through tough times those are the things that start to quickly fall out of our lives. For me when I went through depression those are the things that left my life, first was my faith that God was with me, hope that things would go better and the love of life. These deep words are something I think I want to keep in the for front of my life for many years to come.


So these are the pillars of my life, these are the verse I try to remember everyday and hold close to my heart. What I am going to be posting on this blog is just my study through the bible, my debates on some deep questions and also just trying to get to know who God is more. One thing I am realizing is that more question that are answered about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit the more I continue to have. Feel free to comment, follow or anything. This is my 'accountability partner' this way I can keep myself accountable to seek God deeper.