I have been very disappointed in myself for about the last year when it comes to my prayer life.....i.e. my concentrated time with God each day. For the first time in 13 years of following hard after God, I have allowed the precious privilege of communicating with God to take a back seat.....like almost the "last seat in the back of the bus" kind. Personally, I think it has shown in me. I think the lack of making prayer a priority has led to more abundant negative thought patterns and an over-all cynical disposition within me.
What happened to me? Well, at first I internally blamed it on a specific situation in my life that caused me deep disappointment, discouragement, and disbelief. Not in God, but in a person. But as the months have passed, I have realized that it is completely unfair and completely unfounded to hang my lack of prayer on one major event in my life. It is both extreme and absurd.
When I finally became fed up with "talking the talk, but not walking the walk," I decided to revert back to a prayer vehicle that was extremely helpful to me about 8 years ago. It is Beth Moore's Whispers of Hope - an in depth (Beth Moore always = in depth) devotional/prayer journal that guides the process of your prayers and helps you to be more intentional in your conversations with God. If you are a journal-er by nature, you would really enjoy the format of the book. Coupled with Beth's spiritual deepness (I love this!) and scripture to read along with it, it has all the components of taking your prayer life to a new place. It is a little hard to find, because it is relatively "old" in the book world, but I found it on amazon, and was very grateful.
PS- I was able to put a label on my prayer problem. It is called "rebellion." Simply said, "It's a drawing back from God's Word and refusing His counsel. It is "continuing to seek answers elsewhere and not taking God's Word seriously." I have caused spiritual damage in my life that is going to take a lot of intentionality and more grace from God to recover from. Am I discouraged? No! I am looking forward to the journey. I am excited!
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