That which is on my mind

On Sunday in church, Pastor Phil spoke out of Mark 7. The story involved a Greek woman who's daughter was possessed by a demon. The woman left her home to see out Jesus and ask Him to heal her. It's an interesting story when you look at it, because it's seems as if Jesus is actually giving this woman grief. Which isn't like Jesus. You rarely see Him speak like this to seekers. Usually it's the Pharisees.
(To listen to the sermon, click on the West Shore link on the right and select Sermon Central, and then click the play button).

As he was closing the message, he quoted Luke 18:1: "Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." (italics mine) If I recall, Phil was tying the persistence of the Greek woman with persistence in prayer. Phil's message really resonated with me. How? Well, I pray for numerous things. I am daily going to God for my family and friends and their situations. I don't do that as much for myself. Every once in a while, I'll pray for my future wife. Every once in a while, I'll pray for my job situation. And often I will sometimes not even pray about something important. Only recently, did I figure it might be a good idea to pray about my future housing situation. That seems like a no-brainer, but as much as I think, sometimes I don't. I should have prayed for my weekend (which I discussed yesterday), but I really didn't even start praying for that until Wednesday of last week!

You know how often times you hear something once and it's interesting to hear? But then when you hear it again from a completely different source, you sit up and take notice? I mentioned the passage that Phil shared out of Luke. Well, on Monday, I was listening to a podcast by Erwin McManus, who is the pastor of Mosaic, out in Los Angeles. Erwin was talking about when his first book, Soul Cravings came out, sales suffered. He talked about he gradually came to realize that he never prayed about sales of the book. He had wanted the book to be placed not in the Christianity section, but in the new age section. But that never happened. So the people that he wanted to read the book, weren't reading it. He started praying and things happened.

And this is what got me: While there are so many things that I pray about, there are so many more things that I don't pray about. And this is what I've resolved. While it's important to petition for the needs and requests of others, it's not wrong to petition God for the things that you desire. For a time, I thought it was selfish to pray for myself, thinking that the prayers of other people would cover me. I've since learned that that's not the right way to think. So now I'm trying to start a new habit. Of praying for myself. I have a prayer journal that I've kept on and off for the past two years. I'm going to be more regular about writing prayers in my journal. There are so many empty pages that seem to beckon me. And not only am I going to pray more, but I'm going to be more persistent. I've also given some thought to fasting in some manner on a regular basis. Not quite sure how, but it's something I should probably pray about.

Please pray for me. I appreciate any and all prayers.