Commitment to Pray

God has been tapping my shoulder for a few months now regarding my prayer time. God has gently led me to a realization regarding my prayer time.

I attended the Believe conference in April. The day before Easter to be exact. Becky Tirabassi was one of the speakers and she spoke of her commitment some 20 years ago to pray 1 hour each day. She said she has kept that commitment without fail all these years. Her life is infused with Holy Spirit power. She spoke of how it has changed her life and how God uses her everyday. Of course it sounds wonderful to spend that kind of time with God. But practically speaking I don't have an extra hour. She didn't ask the commitment of us but asked who would be willing to spend 10 minutes a day in prayer. Many raised their hands and made that commitment, myself included.

I ordered a book called the Hour that Changes the World; A Practical Plan for Personal Prayer about a month later. I hadn't read the entire title. I only had noticed the practical plan for prayer part. I was very surprised when this book, too spoke of 40+ years of commitment from many people for 1 hour of prayer. The introduction to the book is impressive. The way God has used each of those people. They are infused with Holy Spirit power.

I attended a women's conference at Hope Chapel that showcased a few talents of women from the church. After the singing, dancing and laughing was through the Women's Paster, Marlo Blanford came up and spoke of some truly gifted women like Corrie Ten Boom who survived concentration camps by faith and Susan Wesley who mothered 19 children but spent over an hour each day in prayer. When she had no place to pray privately, she would flip her apron over her head and her children knew not to interrupt her.

I was starting to feel the conviction of the Lord to make the same commitment. My reluctance was that I tend to jump into things with both feet and no head. I just blurb out my intention and then don't follow through. I was reluctant because I didn't think I could truly live up to it.

I started a book called The Burning Heart Contract and it speaks of having a deep, deep love for God. It speaks of a heart that burns for God. The fuels that keep the fire burning are periods of time with Him and periods of time with His Word. It leads you through to a commitment of an hour a day of prayer.

What is this conspiracy? I am a pretty well read Christian and have never heard of people spending such time in prayer aside from some hundred year old saints. Now everywhere I turn I am being led to this conclusion. Well this weekend's sermon did the final trick.

Pastor Zac Nazarian, our wise and committed pastor spoke of an unlikely passage in 1 Chronicles where King David did not trust in God for victory but counted his own resources to see if he could win under his own power. God punished David for not trusting in Him. Paster Zac spoke of trusting God with our self, time and money. Now for many years I have been absolutely convinced of the need to trust God with our money. I know it is all His and have seen Him move money around in really miraculous ways. But to trust Him with my time? If I take an acount of my time it makes me dizzy without adding in the hour of prayer. I work full time from home as a nurse. I homeschool 3 children, try to maintain my home, teach piano to several students, teach an online class on marriage, sing at performances, volunteer at Awana during the school year, attend Cub Scout meetings, gymnastics with my daughter, attend a weekly bible study and sing on the worship team. When to do laundry? Clean out the hamster cages? Go to the park?

Could I really have faith in God and trust Him with my time? That is a true sacrifice for me. How can I say no to that?

A close friend was telling me how difficult prayer was for her as she has such a difficult time staying on task. Her mind would wander and her time be squandered. I started to consider how an hour with God could be spent without the squandering. Back to the book, The Hour that Changes the World...it splits up your hour into 12 sections. You spend 5 minutes in each section. It gives some structure to your prayer. I will be sharing the sections and my thoughts on each sections in the coming days. I am not asking you to make the same commitment. It took me a few months and many nudges from God before I believed this was something God was asking me to do.
Lisa