Verse to Remember: “They all met together continually for prayer…” — Acts 1:14 (NLT)
Question to Consider: How high a priority is prayer in your group life?
[Read More] thoughts on Day 38 of Rick Warren’s 40 Days of Community.
Two points really jumped out at me. The first is Rick’s observation that the reason Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray is that they had trouble praying. I know, shocking, but I realized I had always interpreted that as referring to mechanism: i.e., that they were already praying a lot, and just needed to know how. But, maybe they struggled like I do (after all, these were the guys who turned Quiet Time into Nap Time at Gethsemene), so Jesus was (also) explaining the motivation for praying. I’ll have to think about that some more.
The other point is that prayer requires bringing our real needs to God. It suddenly struck me that maybe the reason I have trouble praying is that I don’t have a real awareness of my real needs, or of God’s ability to supply them. Or, to put it into apothegm form:
[Note: I was interrupted before writing the prayer, and had to leave immediately after, which is why this devotional ends early].