Church Scattered: Prayer Is An Ongoing Conversation

As Christians living in the church scattered one of the most important spiritual disciplines you will ever have is ongoing prayer.  The ongoing part is extremely important, because prayer should never be limited to one set time a day and emergencies.    We should pray about our marriage, parenting. work and any other challenge we are facing during the day.

We are to live out our faith in every area of our life and because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have been invited to have a conversation with the Father any time about anything.  This conversation needs to be real and raw fully expressing how you are feeling and what you are thinking.  He already knows that and He and wants you to trust Him enough to not be fake or try to hide anything.  If you try to clean it up or hold anything back, He will know you are still trusting yourself to fix it more than His provision and providence.

The other critical part of this is that it is indeed a conversation and that means we need to listen as much as we talk.  When I serve as an executive coach, one of the hardest things to change is to get leaders to transition from listening to respond to listening to understand.

You can take this problem and apply it to your ongoing prayer life.  If you are always asking for help and doing all the talking, then you want Him to fix your problem but not change your relationship with Him.

Every Christian living in the church scattered should be praying at least 20-30 times each day about everything. These prayers may not be long but they are extremely sacred times of fellowship with the Father.    It is exactly what Paul meant when he said pray without ceasing.

While you are talking make sure you make time for listening.  If you have trusted Him for eternity surely He can be trusted for today.  Welcome to Christianity for the 21st century.