ALMOST (saved)

When I Don't Feel Like Praying...

"Nothing can be more foolish in prayer than to rush heedlessly into God's presence and ask the first thing that comes into our mind. When we first come into God's presence, we should be silent before Him. We should look up to Him to send His Holy Spirit to teach us how to pray. We must wait for the Holy Spirit and Surrender ourselves to the Spirit. Then, we will pray correctly.

Often, when we come to God in prayer, we do not feel like praying. What should we do in such a case? Cease praying until we feel like it? Not at all. When we feel least like praying is the time when we most need to pray. We should wait quietly before God and tell Him how cold and prayerless our hearts are. We should look up to Him, trust Him, and expect Him to send the Holy Spirit to warm our heart and draw us out in prayer. It will not be long before the glow of the Spirit's presence will fill our heart. We will begin to pray with freedom, directness, earnestness, and power. Many of the most blessed seasons of prayer I have ever known have begun with a feeling of utter deadness and prayerlessness. But, in my helplessness and coldness, I have cast myself upon God and looked to Him to send His Holy Spirit to teach me to pray. And, He has always done it.

When we pray in the Spirit, we will pray for the right things in the right way. There will be joy and power in our prayer."

- R.A. Torrey (How to Pray, 44-45)

Mature Prayer Life

"There is no more blessed training in prayer than that which comes through being compelled to ask again and again, over long periods of time, before obtaining what we seek from God. Many people call it submission to the will of God when God does not grant them their requests at the first or second asking. They say 'Well, perhaps it is not God's will.'

As a rule, this is not submission but spiritual laziness. We do not call it submission to the will of God when we give up after one or two efforts to obtain things by action. We call it lack of strength of character. When the strong man or woman of action starts out to accomplish a thing and does not accomplish it the first or second  or one-hundredth time, he or she keeps hammering away until it is accomplished. The strong man of prayer keeps on praying until he prays it through and obtains what he seeks. We should be careful about what we ask from God. But, when we do begin to pray for a thing, we should never give up praying for it until we receive it or until God makes it very clear and very definite that it is not His will to give it."

-R.A. Torrey (How to Pray, pp.51)

God and Saturn

Wrestling With God

In my room, I have this quote posted up of  Genesis 32:22 that says the following:

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

You see, as much as I have been blessed with so many beautiful memories and life experiences, I cannot ignore the many times where I have and still do wrestle with God. Quite frankly, I feel like my walk with God often tends to go back to this place of struggle. I have tried to resent those feelings of powerlessness; ignore those frustrations about certain aspects of my life. But, no matter how much I try to avoid God and do things my way or try to stay away from Him, every single time, I come to the conclusion that I cannot be at a better place in my life than to be alone with the Almight God wrestling out different issues until He blesses me with an answer. The fights are often long, they are often painful but, this kind of pain is so sweet compared to those times where I try to fight to make things work on my own. Here's how I break it down: I feel anxious when I am frustrated about not being able to control or fix a situation myself and I feel anguish when I am trying to make myself surrender a part of my life to God or am waiting on Him to bless me with freedom from a part of my sinful heart.

A friend sent me a really neat video today about this Scripture that I have posted on my wall. It's called

The Theology of the Cross and Walking with a Limp by Timothy Keller. It gave a really cool perspective to this Scripture passage that I am so fascinated with! I hope it blesses you with insight as it did for me :)

Hey by Leeland