So sorry for the super late posting today (and it's actually technically tomorrow already, but I'm posting as though it's today!).
Actually, while I'm in confession mode, I may as well keep at it. It's time to bare my soul a little.
I feel like I'm in a spiritual rut right now. I'd say this is likely the first major one I've been in since starting this Bible blog almost two years ago now. I've stopped using my prayer journal. I've stopped doing the extra Bible reading I was doing (a revamped version of Prof Horner's plan). And honestly, the only Bible reading I did this week was for my Tuesday post, which means I have some serious catching up to do.
And the part that seems to make the least sense is that it seems to have started right after my nephew Baret's miraculous healing. What kind of sense does that make? None! After witnessing the amazing power of God firsthand, my spiritual life should be on fire! And it isn't.
Now that I'm acknowledging this, confronting this and confessing this, I'm realizing that this is probably the valley that usually follows a mountaintop experience. We had our mountaintop experience in Baret's miracle, and this is the valley. I'd humbly request your prayers as I slug my way out of this valley - because I know it's a choice, and apparently I've been choosing badly.
Believe it or not, this does tie in with our Colossians passage today. My prayer life has not been what it should be and this passage gives a little help in that area for me.
I don't know about you, but I am sometimes at a complete loss of exactly how to pray for people. There are many people in my life I want to pray for - friends, family, neighbours - but how exactly do I do that, if I don't know of a specific situation they need prayer for? Just repeating "Please be with so-and-so and please be with so-and-so" ad nauseum isn't what I envision a good prayer life to look like. Guess what? There's an app scripture for that.
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Colossians 1:9-14
My Life Application gives this excellent commentary/summary....
Sometimes we wonder how to pray for missionaries and other leaders we have never met. Paul had never met the Colossians, but he faithfully prayed for them. His prayers teach us how to pray for others, whether we know them or not. We can request that they
1) understand God's will
2) gain spiritual wisdom
3) please and honour God
4) bear good fruit
5) grow in the knowledge of God
7) have great endurance and patience
8) stay full of Christ's joy and
9) give thanks always.
All believers have these same basic needs. When you don't know how to pray for someone, use Paul's prayer pattern for the Colossians.
So, the Bible has the answer to my prayer dilemma. Imagine that. When you don't know what to pray, pray scripture. You can't go wrong.
4 comments:
That's an excellent outline to follow! I sometimes worry that I don't know enough about someone to pray "well" for them, but amazingly, I never feel that way after I'm done. I also sometimes struggle with feeling like God must be a little tired of hearing the same old prayers week after week for some people, but I also know He expects us to KEEP praying for His will to be done!
I completely understand the "valley" experience. Sometimes I feel like I've lost interest in my Bible and my prayer journal because I'm in the valley, but often I wonder if I'm in the valley exactly because I've slacked off with my prayer times and Bible reading. Once the crisis is over, we have this (hopefully unconscious!) tendency to say, "Thanks for your help, God! Okay, you can back off now ~ I can take it from here." Or, the crisis so saps our energy that, like the end of a really busy day, we choose to sit and veg instead of continuing to devote ourselves to time with God. We want to be spoon-fed entertainment instead of digging for more knowledge and wisdom.
I completely identify with that. I know the frustration of feeling apathetic and not really wanting to feel that way, but not knowing how to change it. I will be praying for that unsatiable hunger to return!
(and don't pressure yourself to "catch up" ~ that's the quickest way to feeling overwhelmed and frustrated and wanting to just give up! Just carry on from today. If you want, mark the passages you missed and go back to them sometime when you're loving it again. I need to do that with Micah...)
Your post sounds a lot like what I was feeling like the week before last. I can't point to any mountain that I was in the valley from, however. I've been trying now to focus on the why of following Christ instead of the whats and hows, which has really been helping me to remember that all the "dos and don'ts" are supposed to come FROM the relationship, they are not the relationship in and of themselves. I was missing the forest for the trees, you could say.
Thanks for the commentary from your Bible on prayer. I often wonder how to pray well for people too. This is very helpful!
Thanks for the encouragement and prayers ladies, it really means a lot.
Post a Comment