Lately I've been struggling with prayer. This is not typical for me. I enjoy prayer, no - I love it. Long, deep prayer that transports me from my earthbound confinement into the presence of the Lord. Once there, I experience Jesus as I would experience having a cup of coffee with a friend at Starbucks. We talk intimately. I can tell him anything, ask anything, reveal everything. I pray expectantly. I believe His words - anything you ask in My name, whatsoever you ask, ask and you shall receive. My expectation is also based on years of experience. I pray, He heals. I pray, He provides. I pray, His peace arrives. I pray, someone is saved. When I finish, I slowly return to reality, refreshed and strengthened.
But lately, it has not been like that. It has been like work. It's like I'm praying with one eye open, ready to return to the demands of my flesh. Ready to recheck Facebook or read my email, but not ready to devote myself to prayer. I feel disconnected, anxious, and concerned. I know there is nothing wrong in the heavenlies that is causing this disconnect. The problem resides in me. It isn't sin, the first suspect when I experience any interruption in my relationship with the Lord. And it isn't faltering faith, I believe as strongly today as I ever have. Lately, I must order myself to pray. I get alone, say the same words of praise I've often repeated, but they seem without purpose. I begin to pray and in five or ten minutes I want to quit. My mind drifts, and I find myself excusing myself from prayer, promising to return later. Then I don't return. Its been weeks since I've sat with the Lord for an hour in prayer.
I'm not the first to experience this. The great prophet Elijah, after calling fire from heaven in prayer, and calling drought ending rain from the sky in prayer, found himself at the point of spiritual exhaustion. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down
under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough!
Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" (1 Kings 19:4 NKJV)
That's how I feel. Exhausted. Unable to see the Lord's path for my life that leads to the next assignment. God sent Elijah an angel with food and drink and who provided safety in the shade of the broom tree where Elijah could rest. And it worked. So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty
days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. (1 Kings 19:8 NKJV)
God first revealed to Elijah his human weakness, then strengthened him to to things beyond his human ability. God met him on the mountain, and whispered hopeful redirecting words to Elijah, then told him bluntly to get back to walking in his calling.
Maybe that is what the Lord is trying to tell me too. Get out of your self absorption, and get back to walking in your calling. Until I am rested and fed and encouraged, I'll take the tried and true advice gleaned from centuries of praying intercessors -- pray through.
Copyright 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted in whole or in part if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com .
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