January Devotion

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

“Don’t worry.” How many times has someone told you this, or have you find yourself telling someone these wise words? It’s such an easy thing to say to someone else, however when we find ourselves in a similar situation it is so hard for us to take our own advice.

I consider myself a very easy going person, and able to roll with the punches that this sinful world throws my way on a day-to-day basis, however I was not always this way.  After my father had passed at such an early age I worried about everything you could possibly imagine. If my mother was five minutes late from picking me up from basketball practice, if there was a tornado warning, even crawling into bed every night was a challenge for me (probably the biggest), and an even bigger one for my extremely patient mother.

I found myself attending Christian counseling often, and finally one thing got through to me, and that was prayer.  My counselor, Doug, wrote out a prayer for me on a small sheet of paper to keep in those awful Velcro wallets that we used to have growing up.  I was to read this prayer every time that I was worried. This task was a little bit more difficult than one would think since I did not have much of a reason to carry around a wallet with on $1 and few quarters, but that stuck with me. That prayer still rests in my top drawer in Milwaukee with that awful wallet, but I still remember what Doug taught me, prayer is powerful.

So often we overlook prayer in our daily lives because we don't trust it. Which can only mean one thing, that we do not trust God.  In addition when we actually do slow down and have some prayer time it is just us telling God what we think (key word) we need.  God wants to have a conversation with us, not  just have us throw requests at His feet like he is a magic Jeanie who will give us three wishes, if that was the case I hope you all would wish for a million more wishes, I’m not sure how that got overlooked in all these movies. God rather wants to have a relationship with us, that is why we were created!

This month in Sunday Night Life we are going to talk about prayer. Different types of prayer, how to go deeper in our prayer lives as a family, as individuals, and how to make that relationship with God deeper.  Two very simple adjustments can be made to your prayer life to make this phase of your walk with Christ a conversation. The first is for every prayer request you have, thank God for something that He has done for you, is doing for you, or something of that nature. The second is to just stop, be silent, it’s a conversation for a reason. Quiet your heart and soul and see what God has to say back at you.  You may be surprised by what you have been missing.

Through Him Alone,

Ryan Strehlow– DCE Intern