Aug7Written by:BlogForLadies
8/7/2011 5:55 PM 
Today, as I was driving home from work, I listened to a preacher on radio preach regarding prayer. The teaching was one of those very timely messages that just get to one’s heart. Oh how I needed to hear today’s message because my prayer life has been in ruins for about three months and the lack of a close walk with God is evident in my character, my emotions and every part of my being. When a believer is not in tune with the Spirit of God, every aspect of their life is affected. No I haven’t started going to the clubs or doing bizarre things, but the joy, patience, peace, self control, gentleness, faithfulness and all other fruits of the spirit have become near scarce lately. When I came to my senses that I needed to go back to my father and get serious about prayer, I casually knelt down and said a short prayer about how I wanted a closer walk with God before I fell asleep on my knees.
I will be very frank about my struggle with my spiritual walk because I know many believers go through moments when they neglect their walk with God only to find that going back is not an easy thing. For me, I still did not have a desire to pray in the spirit (funny enough, I prayed daily but my spirit did not connect with the Lord’s). I just felt disconnected. So, I decided to do the religious thing- fast for a week. In the past, I used to make up my mind that I would fast for a certain number of days and that was always successful. So, for the whole of last week, I was “preparing” for the fast. Of course I was not praying much, I was eating like I was getting a paid to do it and just being careless about the whole thing. On Sunday night, just as I was about to go to bed, I got out my prayer book (which I could not find because it was tucked beneath a pile of papers and all the junk mail. That’s how long it has been since I wrote anything in that book). Anyway, I got to write my prayer requests which went something like this:
1. Spiritual revival
2. career
3. God give show me my purpose
Well, enough shared already. There were other requests but well, that is a thing of the past because by 2pm, exactly seven hours into the fast, I was praying to God to forgive me for what I was about to do (eat) and requested Him to please bless the large meal I was about to partake of…. So out went the fasting and prayer time and in came the guilt.
God in his love did not abandon me to suffer guilt and defeat. He lovingly told me that I needed to repent and turn back to him. He reminded me about Jeremiah 29:13- you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. As Christians, we get arrogant sometimes. We think we have it all together and start acting as if we are doing God a favor by walking with Him. We neglect prayer and slowly occupy ourselves with other stuff. Well, mine was a rude awakening because I came to realize that without God, I can do NOTHING! Not even fasting. It is God who gives me the strength during my time of fasting and I have nothing in myself that can motivate me enough to fast successfully or even pray diligently. It is all from God. I went down on my knees again, this time totally humbled; I repented and asked God to fill me with the Spirit of God a new.
Finally, going back to the preaching I heard about prayer, the preacher said that from time to time, we lose our way. We get discouraged, we get engrossed in other things like taking care of our families, careers etc. and we let our walk with the Lord slip. He said that God understands how we are formed- from dust (Psalm 103:14) and He knows how weak we are. He does not give up on us. He ended up by saying that we need to set time apart for prayer every day. We have to make it a priority. Prayer is so important; I can’t even emphasize it enough. It is the only weapon we have against the flaming arrows of the devil and against the flesh. He says in Mathew 26:41 “Pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Children of God pray and do not stop! My resolve is to go back to the place of prayer, of having a close walk with God and not letting go. With the Holy Spirit of God living in me, I know I will make it. Pray today, will you?