Prayer has always been an important part of my life. I grew up saying prayers before meals and before bed. I would pray for the people I loved in my life and for great concerns in our church, community, and world. I knew that God heard, I knew that God cared, and even knew that sometimes God answered those prayers. As I have gotten older my life of prayer has continued to grow in my understanding of prayer and in the depth of relationship I have with God through prayer.

During this Lenten season we selected "Draw the Circle: The 40 Day Prayer Challenge" by Mark Batterson as our focus. I had researched it enough that I was excited and expectant about what it could mean for the congregation. What I didn't expect is how much it would challenge and change me. It is really easy to become comfortable in our lives. Comfortable with our family relationships, comfortable with our job, comfortable with what we do for God in the church, community, or world. But every once in a while, we get shaken from our comfort zone and challenged to what God wants to do in us and through us. It is not surprising that this shaking can often come in prayer.

I will admit that over the years of ministry I have at times become discouraged by the direction I see the world going, by natural challenges that we face in the church, and by what I perceived as lack of accomplishment. We gain members and loose members. Programs get started and then loose energy. Now upon deeper reflection I realize that there is much to rejoice over. There is growth in people's lives and ministry happening at many levels. We have many amazing believers of Jesus living lives in deep relationship to God and each other. We are involved in this church, this community, and the world in powerful ways. We should not be discouraged, I should not be discouraged.

Now that being said I think we neither should be content. One of the things that has really stirred my heart most by "Drawing the Circle" is dreaming big, and therefore praying big. I have some very specific things that I believe God has placed on my heart to begin praying for. Some are personal, some are for this church, and some are for the world. These are ideas and prayer that I don't think came from me, but from a higher wisdom and understanding that God has of what needs to happen. None has come to full fruition yet, but I have begun to see glimpses of what God is doing. It is exciting. I am getting excited about what God wants to do and this leads me to want to pray even more.

Whether or not you fully invested in the 40 Day prayer challenge I strongly encourage you to think about your life of prayer and commit to a growing life of prayer. It is the sources of hope and encouragement, the source wisdom and direction, the sources of power and accomplishment. Please join me in listening to God and praying for all the amazing things God wants to do in our lives, our church, our community, and the world. Amen!