First of all, I am madly writing toward the end of another book for Women of Faith Fiction (Thomas Nelson). The setting is in Idaho in the last year of the Civil War. I am loving the main characters, especially the hero and heroine, and enjoying watching those two come together despite all the reasons they think they shouldn’t. But as I have lamented countless times on my blog, I sure wish I was a faster writer. Or at the very least, that my bum wouldn’t become numb after so many hours in the chair. Sigh…
This morning in my Bible reading, I came to one of those verses that stopped me in my tracks:
“Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you…” (1 Samuel 12:23a, NASB95)
Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for [insert names and circumstances here]. That’s what I heard God speak to my heart. When I fail to pray about anything and everything, it is a sin against the Lord.
Yes, I pray. I pray for many, many things and many, many people. And yet I am never quite satisfied with my prayer life. I always feel like it could and should be so much more. Am I the only one who feels that way? And here is another confession: Because of the Internet and global news, I am aware of so much more that needs to be prayed about, and there are times I feel like if I learn of one more person with some horrible crisis in their life, I will not be able to bear it.
In the early 1980’s, my mom and I attended Dick Eastman’s Change the World School of Prayer. It was an amazing course. Don’t remember how many hours or days it took us to go through the class. Vague memory tells me that it was a weekend of study. Anyway, it is all about learning to pray for an hour a day, based upon Jesus’ question (after he found His disciples sleeping while He had been in prayer about the coming crucifixion): “So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” (Matthew 26:40, NASB95).
Basically, in this prayer course, you learn to break down the hour into 12 five-minute segments (such as praise, thanksgiving, intercession, petition, etc.). It’s amazing how quickly the hour goes, and so in recent weeks, I have been putting this discipline back into practice. You can learn more by reading Dick Eastman’s classic book, The Hour That Changes the World (Kindle edition; paperback edition).
And far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you…
~robin
