It is the last day of January. Almost every year I say to myself, “Where did the month of January go?” It is easy for us to let time slip by before we know it. It happens with our work, our children, and our spouses. It is easy for us to let time slip away and miss out on important things.
There is an old illustration used to show the importance of prioritizing things in your life. A teacher once put before his students a bowl of rocks, a bowl of gravel, and a bowl of sand. He told the students that he knew that they would all fit in a glass jar he had sitting beside the three bowls. The students tried, but were unable to figure out the key principle. The teacher showed them that the biggest items, the rocks, had to go in before the smaller items.
This is true in our lives as well. Those things that are the big and important part of our lives need to have first place in our planning, prioritizing, and energy. If they do not then the smaller less important things of life will keep the big things out. We will not have the time or energy because it has been taken over by less important things.
This is so true in our prayer lives. We all know we need to pray. We know that the Bible says for us to pray without ceasing. Yet how many of us pull the covers up around us and realize that we never really stopped and prayed during the day. It is so easy to mean to do something! It is so easy to have good intentions! It is so easy to think that would be a great idea and yet, everyday let the time slip by. Everyday we let the small less important things in life crowd out our prayers.
One of the difficulties of prayer is that it is work. It requires concentration and a bit of organiza- tion. It requires us to be still before the Lord. It requires us to take our faith seriously. It requires us to trust the Lord and put the situations and issues of our life in His hand and in His will.
How is your prayer life? Does prayer have a priority in your life? Do you have a planned time for prayer each day, each week, and each month? Are you trying to grow in your prayer time? It is work, yet prayer has a powerful effect on you and those people and things around you.
I would again challenge you to consider our Wednesday night prayer meeting. We spend the majority of this time in prayer, singing, updating, and in corporate prayer. If you are free on Wednesday nights, why not come and join us as we pray for our congregation, our community, and each other.
If you are finding your days, weeks, and months slipping away without any real time of prayer, then I would encourage you to, as soon as you can, stop and spend a few minutes in prayer.
Praying for all of you!
Dr. Kyle E. Sims
Pastor
