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Hey All,

This week I was challenged to dig deeper in my relationship with God, specifically increase my prayer life to a level that meets 10% of my daily activity. My first thought was that God calls us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing, and yet I thought how will I ever achieve this? There are not enough hours in the day. As with many of us, I was thinking of prayer as a duty rather than a fluid part of my life. The more I thought of this challenge and recalled Nick’s advent service message, where he reminded us that God wants us to abide with Him ALL the time. There again, I had previously thought of abiding as those times when I read the bible or spent time in prayer but not all the time. Recognizing that we are all in different seasons in our life I was reminded of the verse 1 Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. I bring this up as a reminder that God wants us to grow, just and children grow. When we first become children of God, we may not be ready for a daily, hourly, even minute by minute walk with God and to fluidly be in relationship with Him and yet that’s what he desires. This can only happen if we start. Start praying, Start reading the word, Start walking in a right relationship with God. As I read this week I thought Psalm 37:4-9 gives us a good look at this relationship, so let’s dig a little deeper there.

Do my Dreams and Desires match my needs and Gods plan for my life?

Psalm 37:4 begins with Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. If we are ever to have that close personal relationship with God we must find the “delight” in spending time with Him. Have you ever had a bad day and took time out to pray, but while you were praying found peace in being in the Word? PJ reminded us on Sunday that Romans 12:2 says that we are not to be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Psalm 37:5-6 Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgement as the noonday. To truly find a level of peace we must have confidence in Him. 1 John 5:14-15 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.  And if we know He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. This confidence is knowing that God wants the best for us, He always hears us, as it says in 1 John and that he will grant us what we need according to His will.

Psalm 37:7-9 Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man the man who carries out wicked schemes. Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret it leads only to evil doing. For evil doers will be cutoff, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. At times the hardest thing we can do is be patient and wait for the Lord to answer our prayer. Matthew 7: 7-8 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. We need to not be discouraged when our requests are not immediately fulfilled. Jesus tells us that we need to seek and continue to seek while we wait and knock while and continually knock while we believe in His provision for our lives.

So to wrap up

I believe God wants us to dream as it said in the beginning of Psalm 37 he wants to give us the desires of your heart but I think we need to always test our requests to see if they align with God’s plan for our lives. In 1 Timothy 6:9-10 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and many harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. I don’t believe this verse is saying we shouldn’t ask God to bless us but we need to be careful what we ask for because sometimes these things don’t meet the plan for our life or we cannot handle the things we are asking. Proverbs 14:12 says There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death and Luke 12:34 for where your treasure is, there will be your heart also. 

Father I pray this week that you would deepen the relationship with each of us. Show us Lord the plan that you have for our each of our lives, and open our hearts and minds to be obedient to your will. Amen? AMEN!

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