The next step

I'm reading a book called Celebration of Discipline. It has been very inspiring. I've been reading a chapter, letting it sink in, practicing, and then reading the chapter again. Obviously, it's about the classic Christian disciplines: meditation, prayer, fasting, etc. I'm stuck on prayer.

I read the chapter about a week ago, and realized that this quest is going to be more than reading one chapter in a book. I want to learn how to pray and grow in that. Really, God wants us to come to him as children, so it's not like I need to learn how to be really eloquent or discover a some secret to efficacy. But, then again, there's so much to learn even if it's just learning how to want to come to him and be with him.

The author says that we need to ask God for the grace to want to come to him in prayer and meditation because it's not a natural thing to want to do. We might want to every once in a while when we are having some kind of emotional high, but besides that, our flesh wants to do everything but sit down with God and listen for his quiet voice.

And, so far it has been a struggle against the flesh. But, I'm in it for the long haul and really excited about what I know is before me and anyone else who embarks on the journey to be more intimate with Jesus.

Carole Veezy, who I wrote about a month or so ago, is one person who lives a life of prayer. When she came to talk to our church about what God's doing in Uganda, she also inspired me to make everything begin, happen, and end with prayer. Her walk with God and her ministry are really mostly prayer. It's not that she doesn't do anything but pray, but it seems like everything she does is a result of what she sees Jesus doing as she meets with him in prayer.