Pray in the Best of Times
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For many, in the good times, in the Best of Times we often think too highly of ourselves in our achieved accomplishments often thinking "I did it." When in fact it was God who gave us the brain and body to accomplish the task. In seeking achievement we are going to run into bumps in the road to achievement and sometimes we will fail. Prayer is the best way to learn how to handle achievement and the Glorious Way to learn how to accept failure. In a prayerful life the least we can do is (1)- thank God for our abilities to achieve, and (2)- thank Him for teaching us the attitude that failure is unavoidable and just a stepping stone to success.
Praying in the Best of Times helps us in many ways, but it especially prepares us for our praying in the Hard Times. Here are just a few thoughts to encourage prayer during our "Best of Times":
1- Prayer helps control our ego. "I" is one of the most dangerous words in our language. It get us in more trouble than we like to think about. Too often "I" often leads us from the good times to the bad times (*1).
2- In all our times, praying for others is important. Praying for others helps us to be thankful for what we have and helps control our wants. In being thankful for what we have it leads to giving up some of the desires and wants of what we don't have. But best of all, praer is one of the chief tools to help us achieve a greater Personal Relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
In praying for others, do not be shy about asking for prayers. Pray for friends in their hard times, but pray too for others in their Praise filled times (their good times) giving God the glory for a friends good fortunes. Tell them you pray for them especially if they are not prayerful. When we ask for prayers it shows our Faith in God, Faith in prayer, and sets a good example for others. It is a great Gift to others in praying for them, especially if they do not pray much. When a friend sees the power of prayer they may just become more prayerful.
3- Praying helps us forgive others. In forgiving others we remove anger and hate from our lives and this leads us to better relationships with all people around us. It also helps keep us out of trouble since seeking revenge can often ruin our lives.
4- Forgiving others helps us become aware of our own sin and short comings. Maybe in our work we hurt someone by a word or deed. In our ego we might not recognize we have upset them. What if that person is part of your work team, it could lead to team related problems and possible failures of the team. In achieving humble prayers we find there is no room for our ego.
5- In forgiving others we come to realize we need forgiveness too. One of the best petitions we can have in our humble prayers is, "Lord, I love you, please forgive me of my sins." This helps clear our mind for better vision of our needs and wants, and knowing the difference.
6- It generally requires humility to realize our need for forgiveness. It requires more humility to respond and ask for forgiveness. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). In the writing "Meekness or Boldness"(*2) it is explained that meekness (humility) does not require us to be a doormat for everyone to step on. Even Jesus chose just the right moments of His battles. The world's greatest leaders people remember most are usually someone of humility from a modest background. This includes people such as Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Paul, Martin Luther, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King to name a few. Humbleness and meekness does not make a person weak. In the end, humbleness and humility gives us greater strength to work with people and overcome the barriers to what should be done. It it key to Trusting our Personal Relationship with God and accomplishing the goals He wants us to achieve.
7- Praying reduces stress in our everyday life. To learn about this Google 'prayer reduces stress'. There are many articles on this.
8- Prayers in our good times teaches us to accept God's answers in His timing and the difference between our needs and our wants. God is not in the 'wants' business but is in the business of supplying our needs. Learning to live with God answered prayers in His timing during our good times helps prepare us to be patient in our hard times. Experience is a good teacher leading to remebering the great lessons we learn in our patience.
9- In our acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior, we receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. To feel this Spiritual Guidance, to understand it is there, and to know it is real, we need to pray and pray and pray everyday.... and learn to listen. Listening and feeling the Spiritual movement in our lives is hard when you have no experience in feeling and responding to the movement, pushing, and nudgings of the Holy Spirit. Pray to God to feel the Holy Spirit move you.
We learn to feel the Holy Spirit in our lives by Seeking the Kingdom in Bible Study, community worship, and prayer. Practice in the Good times makes this easier in the hard times. It is encouraging to pray everyday "Dear God, Help me feel the Holy Spirit in my life, even when I an not thinking about it, please help me allow and feel the Holy Spirit lead me in all I think, in all I say, and in all I do, especially in the panic of my hard times." Doing this daily and often brings great change in our lives. It is a great sign of trusting God and trusting our prayers.
10- Finally, we must learn that sometimes the answer to our prayers is not what we expect and sometimes the answer is "no". In the answer of "no", we may find that our request is not a need or sometimes God is expecting you to wait for something better to come. But, whatever the answer is, praying daily in the good times we learn and experience the answer is always exactly what we need and exactly at the time we need it. In our Hard times and being a prayerful person, patience and confidence in our prayers is already part of our prayer experiece. Learning to wait on God's answers in His timing of delivering those answers builds our Personal Relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy spirit. In that, God builds us as with confidence in our prayers.
Pray Hard in the Good times, the Best of Times,
so in the bad times praying is easier.
But, above all, Pray in all times, often, daily;
praying is a gift of God.
Thanks be to God
© lonnie coggins
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Publication 0194
Praying in the Best of Times can be difficult if we let our ego take control of our life. Praying in the Good times, the Best of Times is good for us because it prepares us, teaches us, and helps us to feel and know the need to pray in our worst of times. Click the link to read some thoughts on praying and how it helps us, in all our times. Share on your fb page as you are lead to do so.
http://lonnieadailythought.blogspot.com/2013/12/pray-in-best-of-times.html
