the obstacle of prayerlessness

So I have been doing a beth moore bible study on my own lately, and i have been such a bad blogger about sharing what the Lord is teaching me thru it! todays lesson hit me like a ton of bricks though... bc prayer is a huge weakness of mine.

i have struggled at having a consistent prayer life my whole christian life. i have had streaks of good prayer journaling, prayer list making, sitting and praying aloud by myself, and praying prayers from guides or books. but nothing has ever stuck. enter my bible study today...

the title was "the obstacle of prayerlessness", and once i read it i knew i was in trouble! here is the paragraph i really wanted to share with you:

Often, we do everything but pray. We tend to want something more "substantial." Even studying the bible, going to church, talking to the pastor, or receiving counsel seems more tangible than prayer.... he [the enemy] would rather we do anything than pray... he'd rather see us study the Bible into the wee hours of the morning, because he knows we'll never have deep understanding and power to live what we have learned without prayer.

Beth Moore, Living Free pg 84

how many times i have justified my lack of focus on prayer by my 'passion' for the Word! how many times i have began talking with a friend about a circumstance to avoid talking to the Lord about it. i think any of us that struggle with prayer have made a million excuses to suppress the feeling we have that something is missing... part of the relationship is lacking.

there have been so many times when i have tried to work on this, but my main struggle is that my mind jumps to a million other thoughts and by the time i have realized it i have sat in my 'prayer time' for like twenty minutes not praying at all! enter my bible study again...

this study really focuses on praying God's word, scripture prayer. HOLLA! this is what i had been needing so badly! "the written Word of God expresses the mind of Christ more accurately than anything this side of heaven", so if i want to become like Christ then why not continually pray His Word? duh!

so i challenge you to try it today. pick a passage of scripture and pray it to the Lord. you can simply read the Words aloud to Him, paraphrase them for you, read a sentence then elaborate from your heart, do whatever works best for you. here are a few different scriptures we have done in this bible study to get you started: Joshua 24:15, Psalm 86, Psalm 18:31-35, Deut. 7:9, Eph 1:18-20, Ps 33:4, Luke 17:5, Isa 26:8, Prov 8:13, Col 3:12, 1 Pet 5:5, Neh 9:6, Job 36: 26-29...