Shortly before I was ordained, my pastor took me aside to give me some advice. “Don’t loose your spirituality,” he cautioned me. “Oh, that won’t happen to me,” I assured him with the confidence of  naive youth. Around 15 years into the ministry I discovered that was exactly what had happened. I was so busy doing the Lord’s work, I didn’t have time for the Lord.

The remedy for my lack was to be intentional about prayer. We have to intend to pray. I have known people (including pastors) who told me something like, “Oh, I don’t need to have any special time to pray. Everything I do is prayer.” Making everything prayer an admirable goal, but I think it is rarely achieved. Most of the time when everything is supposed to be prayer, nothing becomes prayer because nothing in intended to be prayer.

My experience has been that I have to set a time, place, and method of prayer. Some may complain that this denies that spontaneity of prayer. Not so. If I feel the prompting of the Spirit to pray, I pray whenever and wherever and however I am moved. But I also make sure I pray even of I don’t feel like it. As a child, I never felt like eating Brussel sprouts, but my mother made me do it for my own good. And so I discipline myself to pray, for my own good. God gives all believers the gift of prayer. We need to be intentional about using it. We need to take time to pray.

Read Colossians 3:12-17, and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne