FA+
Shop
CFF Prayer Journal
12 years ago
How's your prayer life going everyone?
Depending on how long you've been a Christian (or even were you live in the US), it may seem cliche to mention that a large true part Christianity is a personal relationship with God. One of the things that makes being a Christian so difficult sometimes is that we don't have a list of rules to keep; instead, we have a relationship - a friendship - with Jesus Christ. When you have a set of "Do"s and "Do Not"s it's a fairly simple matter of doing what you ought, not doing what you ought not, but it doesn't take any faith, or love or even much thought.
Anyone can tell you that deepening a relationship - whether it's a friend, a significant other, or any other joining together of two people - is a lot more difficult. You have to listen, communicate, interact and just spend time with them. Sometimes you have to compromise and yield, and even in the good times, a relationship can feel like a punch in face. But they're worth it! Even if they take massive amounts of faith, love and thought, (and courage, and valor and virtue etc) and effort are why they are more difficult.
God does not ultimately view those in his Kingdom as a homogenous set of Rule Keepers, but He sees us warmly as individuals who love him, who are part of his family. We are friends of God, and we have a relationship with him to cultivate and make more real (the old theologians called things that did so the "means of grace").
Prayer is an important way we connect with God, not just to tell him what we want or to ask for stuff, but as a way to talk with him. He knows everything, but he wants us to share our days with Him, our highs and our lows, our struggles and victories in life. God's given us the gift of talking with him in prayer, to help us realize that He really is always here for us.
Even if we don't have any specific prayer requests for this week, keep thinking and moving towards Jesus in all you do. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
~~ Jude
Depending on how long you've been a Christian (or even were you live in the US), it may seem cliche to mention that a large true part Christianity is a personal relationship with God. One of the things that makes being a Christian so difficult sometimes is that we don't have a list of rules to keep; instead, we have a relationship - a friendship - with Jesus Christ. When you have a set of "Do"s and "Do Not"s it's a fairly simple matter of doing what you ought, not doing what you ought not, but it doesn't take any faith, or love or even much thought.
Anyone can tell you that deepening a relationship - whether it's a friend, a significant other, or any other joining together of two people - is a lot more difficult. You have to listen, communicate, interact and just spend time with them. Sometimes you have to compromise and yield, and even in the good times, a relationship can feel like a punch in face. But they're worth it! Even if they take massive amounts of faith, love and thought, (and courage, and valor and virtue etc) and effort are why they are more difficult.
God does not ultimately view those in his Kingdom as a homogenous set of Rule Keepers, but He sees us warmly as individuals who love him, who are part of his family. We are friends of God, and we have a relationship with him to cultivate and make more real (the old theologians called things that did so the "means of grace").
Prayer is an important way we connect with God, not just to tell him what we want or to ask for stuff, but as a way to talk with him. He knows everything, but he wants us to share our days with Him, our highs and our lows, our struggles and victories in life. God's given us the gift of talking with him in prayer, to help us realize that He really is always here for us.
Even if we don't have any specific prayer requests for this week, keep thinking and moving towards Jesus in all you do. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
~~ Jude
Rukh_Whitefang
~rukhwhitefang
I'll add a bit by saying prayer is an integral and necessary part of the walk with God. IF one finds there walk with God feeling empty, then most of the time its because their prayer life is empty. It works vice versa as well.
My favorite way to pray is to simply converse. I talk to Jesus like he's an old friend. I'm not doing it as much as I used to (darn life gets VERY busy!), but I still try to take some time out of my day to do it. The best time to do so is when driving, I find.
