Substance-based Prayers

Don’t you just love how God works/plans things? As I was reading about the issue of prayer this morning in my devotional time, I became aware that Thursday is the 59^th Annual National Day of Prayer! How cool is that!

Colossians 4:2 says this:

“Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.”

To be mentally alert in prayer means to be sensitive to the Spirit’s guidance. It means that our prayers should not be limited to memorized, generic prayers. It means that our time of reflection with God should last longer than 30 seconds each day. An ‘alert mind’ indicates thought and attention being put into our prayers…some meat and potatoes instead of a mere sprig of parsley.

In addition, we are to have thankfulness in our heart as well. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I have prayed self-centered prayers over the years. When our prayers tend to be completely focused on ourselves, the cause is usually an unthankful attitude. When we recognize all the blessings in our life…the evidence of God’s hand in motion, it’s much easier to focus our prayers on others. This is the basis of the Greatest Commandment.

This week, may you strive to prayer with the heart of Jesus. May you also get in the habit of asking the Spirit to direct your prayer time. When he guides our words and focus, we can’t go wrong!