2006 Resolution: To Pray

"No man is greater than his prayer life. The pastor who is not praying is playing; the people who are not praying are straying. The pulpit can be a shop window to display one's talents; the prayer closet allows no showing off." -Leonard Ravenhill

This year, I resolve to deepen my prayer life. It is my spiritual lifeline, that through which my spirit receives sustenance: a shallow prayer life means shallow spiritual roots. This coming year, I want my roots to grow deeper.

"The biggest problem with life is that it's just daily. You can never get so healthy that you don't have to continue to eat right... Spiritually we're in much the same place... The only thing praying today is good for is today." -Rich Mullins

Does the spirit have hunger pains? I wonder if it's like when you starve yourself to the point that eventually you stop feeling it. I just find it so much easier to skip a week of praying, than to skip even a single meal.

"Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?" -Corrie Ten Boom

Paul exhorts us to pray without ceasing, and I like this analogy of driving. If I were a car, when the driver takes his hands off the steering wheel, even for a moment, I'll tend to go where I want, dangerously veering this way and that. I need God, not just for directions, but also to constantly nudge me here and there to keep me going straight.

"Rich is the person who has a praying friend." -Janice Hughes

My goal for cell group, as well as with Esther.

"Men are God's method. The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men. What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men who the Holy Spirit can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not come on machinery but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer." -Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds

My year-end vision. This year being my Boards year, I don't know how God plans on using me this year. I won't be able to go on any STM, and I'll have to scale back my involvement in church ministries. I'll just have to wait and see.