Greetings Group,

God's peace and blessing be with you all.

 

As God has called me to a deeper place of prayer (please pray that I get there!), I recognize how prayer is based on life circumstances. Inevitably, we pray about those things around us, things that bother us, challenges we face, challenges family members face, etc. Then we tend to stretch out from there and pray for church, community, city, world, and so on.

 

As hard as this may sound, I've found that the deepest and most profound of my prayers have come out of those times when I was really struggling; times when I hurt the worst, felt the most frustrated, or fearful, or just plain lost on the way. In fact, in the "good times," it's almost easy to miss good prayer altogether.

 

My word of encouragement, then, is to not allow those hard times to pass without recognition of the deep and precious work God is doing in our lives. God is not absent at those times, but calling us deeper, closer, more assuredly into his loving arms.

 

Is the journey hard? Know that God not only hears your prayers at this time, but is close to all that call upon his name.

 

May the captivating love of God, the fellowship with the Spirit, and the awesome forgiveness and favor of Jesus Christ be with you all this day.

 

John