"The Lord's Blessing"

 "Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:24 KJV)

  ""And so I tell you, keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you."" (Luke 11:9 NLT)

 How is your prayer life? Have you even considered it, as a life? Do you even know what it means, to say, 'I have a prayer life'? There once was a time when I would skip my routine of praying every morning, most mornings for at least one hour. It was something I picked up after doing a study about what Jesus asked his disciples in the garden, saying, "Can't you not pray for at least one hour?" 

 Most of my prayer time is devoted to prayer for those people in my life that I have started to pray for; as it is my belief that you must keep praying for those people, not to call them out onto the battlefield, just to leave them out there on their own. But you can do what you want, I just try to make that my duty, as if it is an obligation. One thing for sure, if you don't know what to pray for a whole hour, prayer for a hundred or more souls will help you pass the time! 

 This makes better sense if you think about what Jesus is doing for you: He intercedes for you before the Father! Yes, that's right; while we make foolish mistakes and misjudgments, He intercedes and stands up for us, making the case for the complete washing away of sins, both, before and after our salvation! Besides that, between the justification stage, which is the day we accepted Christ as Lord, to the glorification stage, when we are glorified with Christ in Heaven, there is the sanctification stage, where we get purified and processed into something, whether we like it or not; it is the action of making us what He wants us to be! 

 Better yet, when we know that He hears our prayers, we enter into the joy of the Lord! It is just so much more exciting to feel as though your prayers really matter, that you are not just wasting time, because you see your prayers being answered! 

 That is one aspect of it, but better still, is to seek, which is to have the Holy Spirit assist you in what to pray. Having hardly any clue what to pray is like trying to navigate around in the dark; you don't know if you are headed in the right direction until you bump into something familiar. It is best to let the Holy Spirit help you, as He knows what you should pray for, even if you don't know what you might be saying. 

 And the life, which is the part that makes things exciting and interesting to watch, is the knocking! For that is where we continually get surprised and amazed. Pastor Chuck always had a saying, that many of the pastors under him carried forward: "Where God guides, God provides!" Which basically means, If God is guiding the way, then He will provide the means to make it happen! If it doesn't have God's blessing, then we shouldn't try to make it happen on our own but wait on Him to open the door!  

 That doesn't mean that there won't be opposition, because there most likely will be. But God's provision is the sign that He is guiding us in the right direction...

"This is what the LORD says - the Holy One of Israel and your Creator: "Do you question what I do for you my children? Do you give me orders about the work of my hands? I am the one who made the earth and created people to live on it. With my hands I stretched out the heavens. All the stars are at my command. I will raise up Cyrus to fulfill my righteous purpose, and I will guide his actions. He will restore my city and free my captive people - without seeking a reward! I, the LORD of Heaven's Armies, have spoken!"" (Isaiah 45:11-13 NLT)