Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Prayer Summer 2014 - Why We're Doing This

The wake of "The Badger" (car ferry) on Lake Michigan

For those doing Prayer Summer with me:

It's Tuesday morning and Linda and I are vacationing at Glen Lake in northern Michigan, adjacent to beautiful Sleeping Bear Dunes. We had a delightful day yesterday as we went to Leland and Traverse City. Linda is not awake yet so I'm sending this off and going apart to meet with God. 


To pray is to meet with the Maker of heaven and earth, about what He and I are doing together. This is a today-thing. God is doing stuff this day, and I get to be part of it.

I'm so thankful you are doing Prayer Summer with me. My heart is to encourage and challenge Jesus-followers like you to have a life of prayer, which means: to be actually praying.

Why pray? Well, all the Old Testament God-leaders prayed. The early church gathered and prayed. Paul had a deep, constant prayer life. But even more important than this: Jesus prayed. Often. Who am I to say I don't have time to pray?

Praying is foundational to our relationship with God and abiding in Christ. Prayerless people will be out-of-touch-with-God people. Prayerlessness renders the people of God irrelevant, impotent, and inauthentic.

I want to reconnect people to God, via praying. I desire to strengthen an already-existing prayefulness, since we all have room to grow.

Almost a month of Prayer Summer has passed. How are you doing? Remember: this is not to be some "striving" or "trying harder" thing. The reason is because this is about a relationship. If I have to strive to take time to communicate with Linda, then my marriage is in trouble. Real relationships don't need to be pressured or guilt-manipulated.

God doesn't love us less if we don't pray or love us more if we do. But it is in prayer that we especially hear God expressing his love for us, and we respond by telling God "I love you, too." Prayer is communicating with God.

God has called his people to pray. That's what we're doing, together. The 30-60 minutes a day, 5 days a week idea is one I believe God gave me. I pass it on to you. My prayer is that this will ignite your conferencing with your Lord.

I bless you now with a deep, abiding prayer-relationship with the One who knows and calls you by name.