This is Arvell Craig with The Monday Morning Devo for Januray 12, 2015.
This morning I want to bring together the theme of asking seeking and knocking and also tie in the three levels of prayer. I want to give an example of how this can look in our daily prayer life.
Everything discussed on the subject “prayer” is all about seeing MORE of God’s reality manifested in our daily life. It’s about getting past asking to integrating the desires of our heart with the work of our day. Is everything inline or are things disconnected, a bit double-minded?
And so, there are two ways to be disconnected here:
1. Do we invite God into the details of our work and goals and desires?
2. Are we working for or seeking to desire and find the priorities or the Kingdom of God?
So here is my example and application of how we can begin to live some of these ideas.
I’ve got 8 steps or pieces for us as we commune daily with God:
- Dump every concern or worry off on God. Clear the air of whatever is consuming your mind or heart.
- Pray for grace and peace or thanksgiving and gratitude for the things he’s given you: health, family, job, life.
- Specifically ask for his divine involvement to reach daily goals with your work and family, and whatever else you choose.You see, with this we are connecting our asking with our knocking. We have brought work into our prayer life, and thus invited God into our work life.
- Every morning, seek God — His presence, His face, His ways — through worship and reading His Word.
- As you are seeking and reading and worshipping or meditating, anticipate finding Him or hearing from Him or learning a new insight, or receiving correction or conviction about your life.
- If something does come to you, pray about that. This is what we called the third level of prayer, praying His will to be done in your life.
- If nothing new or fresh comes to you, I suggest you simply turn your journal back a day or two, a week or two towards something God spoke in the past, and pray about that.
- And the final step — something I am just recently experimenting with myself — set an alarm or make an appointment for yourself, later in the same day — you only need 5 minutes or so, perhaps right after lunch or right before the workday ends to review what you asked or wrote that morning. Reflect on whether God has responded to your prayer or if you forgot completely about everything God said or what you wanted. Then commit the remaining time of the workday to God and try to remember what he said or what you said.
OK? I hope something of this will be helpful to you or fruitful for your life today. If you are getting something of value, please share the value with someone, and leave me a comment on the blog.
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, I commit to You my day. My prayer and desires, my work and family. Would you be Lord of all and help me to remember You and work with You throughout my entire day. In Jesus’ name-Amen.