Want more peace in 2008? Consider making diligent prayer a focus!
Philippians 4:6-8 (New Living Translation)
6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
We usually take the first few days of the new year to prayerfully consider what God may be asking of us. When we get together to exchange new lists, we review the prayer list for the previous year to see what has been answered. Most of the time, our lists are 100% answered. For those times they were not, we saw God's hand in those areas or He completely answered in a different way than what we were expecting. What a testimony to the power of prayer.
If you have trouble praying or finding things to pray about, you might want to think about having someone to pray with you. Not only does it keep you praying outside things that are only in the scope of "your world", but it also provides accountability. We are admonished by the Word of God to encourage one another in the faith and to build one another up. Also, the Word tells us that if two or three have come together to pray about the same thing, He will be right there with us! He desires to answer our prayers according to His will; even knowing what our needs are before we even know what we are in need of... but sometimes we forget that we must simply ASK. And how do we ask? Through prayer.
Don't let another year go by without making prayer a daily spiritual discipline. You'll be eternally grateful that you did... and chances are someone else will be glad you did, too!
