Taking Practical Steps With Your Prayer Life

²⁶Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary. ²⁷But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].  1Cor. 9:26-27 (Amp)

How often do you read your word?  What’s your prayer life like?  Questions like these tend to bring a lot of conviction and guilt, regardless of who you’re asking.  Over the years, I’ve definitely had my ups and downs in this area.  There have been times where I felt like my time with God was exemplary and other times where I would be embarrassed if the subject even came up.  We all know that we should be consistent, but most struggle to accomplish this feat.

Over the years, I’ve learned to approach my prayer time with God like a fighter. You may wonder why or how I would relate prayer and study to fighting, but I don’t think I’ve fought harder and longer with anything else in my life!  We all fit into two styles of fighting.  Brawling and boxing.  Brawling is probably seen as a rougher style where anything goes.  Boxing is probably more reserved, if not downright boring in comparison to a big brawl.  The biggest thing that sets these two styles apart is planning.  In a brawl, you might grab the closest thing to you and throw it at your opponent, but in boxing you have a limited amount of time to overcome your opponent with nothing but two fists and quick reflexes.  If brawling were an art, boxing would be a science.  In boxing, opponents have already studied each others favorite moves and planned counter-attacks before they even step in the ring.  We have to treat our flesh the same way.

This scripture in 1 Corinthians encourages us to be precise and thoughtful when we fight. As Christians we know that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, because our fighting is done in prayer.  We are in a day and time where God is challenging us to go beyond the emotional style of a brawl, because emotions and adrenaline can only take you so far as you’ve probably seen in the ups and downs of your prayer life.  When I got tired of repenting for my pitiful prayer life, I sat down with God and began to plan.  I thought through the course of the day and looked for soft spots in my schedule that I could spend with God without interruptions.  When I couldn’t find anything, I looked realistically at what sacrifices I could make that I knew I could and would stick with.  In short, I started thinking like a boxer.  A boxer knows his/her limitations and studies his/her adversary and says “how will I beat you?”  In this case your adversary is your own flesh, mixed within your day-to-day schedule.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve fought enough to realize that the first or the hardest punches don’t always win the fight. I needed to put some practical combos together that would work for me against …me.  I had to plan specific times with God (aka put Him first regardless of whatever else is going on) that were realistic and pushed me in the right direction.  This can’t be accomplished without sacrifice, but it may not be as hard as you think, even if you’re super busy like me.  Of course, I still have times of impromptu prayer where I sneak away from the family and other things for some alone time with The Father, but that’s icing on the cake.  I can’t depend on impromptu to develop consistent and long term victories against the flesh.  It just won’t happen.

Successful boxers don’t just go for the knockout blow. They have a plan of attack and work the plan.  When something else opens up, they take it.  This means that you shouldn’t try to kill yourself with your first attempt.  If you only pray 15 minutes a day, don’t fool yourself into thinking you can jump to 2 hours.  That’s an emotional decision.  That is something a brawler would do.  It probably won’t work and will make you feel discouraged from the overall failure instead of encouraged by any progress.  I can’t knock out a heavy weight unless I train like a heavy weight.  Let’s be real.  Add practically to what you are doing so that you can be encouraged and know that it is possible.  Just realize when you make the plan, that you also are planning to add to it your time.  As the scripture says, do not fight like someone who is “beating the air.”  Beat/buffet your body and discipline yourself to accomplish what is needed in your relationship with God to be who He has called you to be.  This doesn’t mean you won’t take a hit here and there, but this does put you in a better position to consistently break new ground and win the fight.  Remember we are supposed to forcefully advance, not run in circles.  If we learn to work smarter instead of just harder, we can do it.

Be encouraged.

Written by: Edward Welch

EWelch@trustmark.com

Artists Devo: Let It All Go (2Edge)

It’s gonna be alright, man
No need to worry about a thing
Our Father, hallowed be thy name
He’ll give you a brand new song to sang
Before you figure it out, the thing will change
That’s the way God do it, man
(from “Let It All Go”) Read more

Stop Crying and FIGHT!

While playing a video game with his Grandmother, my friend’s two year old son won the game.  When Grandmother put on a sad face and pretended to cry the two year old said, “Grandma, stop crying and fight”.  Isn’t it so like a child to speak such awesome truth?  As I delve into Ephesians 6 that’s what I hear God saying.

Faced with financial challenges, marital difficulties, and emotional drama I hear the Lord say Satricia stop crying and fight.  He has given us the tools to do just that, fight, but with so many challenges we seem to cower down and resort to handling our problems with our emotions.

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Artist Devo: The Idol of Religion (Pro)

i-dol-a-try    [ahy-dol-uh-tree]

–noun, plural -tries.
1.  the religious worship of idols.
2.  excessive or blind adoration, reverence, devotion, etc.

Read: Acts 17:22-31

It’s so easy for us as believers to look at this passage and say “this doesn’t apply to me.  I’m saved.  The Athenians were oblivious to the true God.”   To an extent you would be right.  Idolatry is so easy to spot in the unbeliever.  Some worship money.   Some worship the opposite sex.  Most worship themselves.  None worship the Lord.  But I also pray that we dig deeper.  Let’s look at the nuts and bolts of this passage and see how maybe we have turned great things in to idols.

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Artist Devo: The Flavor of Love (Verbs)

Many times in my walk with the Lord through the years, I think I have heard countless songs, references, and messages based on 1st Corinthians 13, more affectionately known as “The Love Chapter”.  Unfortunately, as much as I’ve heard it, many times I must have filed it in a corner cabinet in my mind underneath a folder marked “Things To Remember Later” as  Love messages started sounding too common to me and didn’t get a whole lot of extra attention.  Recently, in a conversation I was having with my wife, she gently reminded me of one of the verses in the chapter that states, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” That caused a ripple effect in my mind that forced me to go back to the chapter and really take in what God says Love is, and if it is said to be there, what does it look like and what does it  and does not produce?  If I am using the word “Love” to describe my feelings toward my wife, or any other relationship, then it should line up with Gods’ definition, otherwise I may need to search for another word to describe those feelings.  Let’s look briefly: (Caution, you may see yourself in somewhere in this list here just like I did. The beauty of it is we can now use the text as a measuring stick to get our minds/hearts right.)

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Artist Devo: The True Power of Forgiveness (Excelsius)

Up until my mid-20’s, I perpetuated a very ungodly disdain for my biological father.  The gravity of my sin didn’t manifest itself until after he was murdered.  In the aftermath, I wrestled with admitting to myself that I exhausted an excessive amount of emotional energy by attempting to keep him in the prison of my resentment.  In my estimation, he forfeited the honor of “Dad” because he did nothing to earn it.  I felt like in his abandonment of our family, he was partly to blame for us having to struggle so much.  But I learned the hard way that even though my feelings of exasperation were valid, life is too short to completely right all my wrongs.

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Devotional: “Hustle” by Urban D.

Imagine having everything you could ever dream of wanting?  The highest luxury the world had to offer.  TV shows and movies can paint this fantasy for all of us that we might find ourselves daydreaming in at times… but for a cat named Solomon it was no dream – this was reality.  He was known as the wisest man that lived during his time.  Historians look at his life and calculate he was the wealthiest man to ever live.  They’ve even calculated his wealth into today’s economy and say that he was 8-10 ten times richer than Bill Gates.  He had everything his culture had to offer… and if his culture didn’t have it – he invented it and built it.  He worked hard and he studied.  He was driven!  Solomon built cities, parks, gardens, and palaces.  Read more

Artist Devo: Fatherhood (Mark Arthur)

I didn’t realize I would enjoy being a father so much!!  I absolutely love telling my kids how much I love them and I am all butter when they tell me back.

I have been married five years and I have a three year old boy and a two year old girl. I am not taking anything away from being a husband, but fathers are responsible for so much more within the family unit. This includes being a husband to your wife as well. Even in Roman culture, the father’s place was at the head of the family. People understood that society’s structure and stability were rooted in the family’s structure and stability. Read more

Artist Devo: Katalyst is JEALOUS!

One day I was looking at videos on YouTube…I pretty regularly look at what is going on in the hip-hop community and throughout the country in general. Anyway, so I was watching some interviews of different secular artist and laughing at the ignorance, braggadocio and pride, when suddenly I felt myself becoming… jealous. That’s right, I admit it, I was jealous. I was looking at their ‘ice’, all the tailor made suits, the huge studios that they worked in and I was jealous. Let me make something clear. Although I am Christian, I am still human and I struggle with sin. I get upset sometimes when I think they get the best tracks, engineers, marketing, promotion, TV stations and packaging.  All this to promote sin, while I struggle Read more

Artist Devo: The Little Things (Bobby Bishop)

The other night I performed a concert in northern New England, which isn’t exactly a hip-hop hub.  I agreed to do the concert without an honorarium because I had heard and seen deliberate ministry from the organization hosting the festival, and I considered it a privilege to be a part of the event they were hosting.  I figured that four hours of driving could be made up for in t-shirt and CD sales, so on a business level I also justified my participation in the event.

When I arrived, I was admittedly a bit disheartened.  There could not have been more than twenty people at the front of the stage for the band that was performing at that time.  Read more

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