Today, let's look at the "Purpose" component of prayer.
Purpose
Encouragement
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Prayer, day seven. Start with prayer. Dear God, please help me to hear you and understand your message for me, amen. The beans, or the background. Again today, we're looking at the example that Jesus set while he was on earth about prayer. He gives us the Lord's prayer as a model, and today we'll be looking at the purpose component of prayer. I mean, who doesn't need help discerning their purpose in life each day? As we arrive at today's verse, Jesus is at the beginning of his earthly ministry and continues to show us over and over again just how powerful and important it is to stop and pray. The verse, Luke chapter six, verses 12 and 13. One of those days, Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray and spent the night praying to God. When morning came, he called his disciples to him and chose 12 of them, whom he also designated apostles. The fill. What's the point? Y'all, Jesus had to pick his disciples. He had to choose a group of people who would not only be the people by his side throughout his earthly ministry, but also the ones responsible for spreading his message after he dies. You know, just the dudes responsible for starting the Christian church that we still know today. You know, no biggie. You want to talk about pressure? Imagining myself in his situation, I'd be thinking, who do I pick? Is it the super smart ones? The likable ones? I mean, come on, that is some real pressure. Jesus though, knew that he needed his father's discernment. So before he made a decision, he spent time in prayer. It actually says he spent the night praying to God because again, huge decisions require a little more prayer time. While we haven't had the weight of the world on our shoulders, quite literally like Jesus did, we too are invited, encouraged, and called to come to God and ask him for discernment in our own lives. And we can relax in the safety of knowing that when it comes to those super tough decisions that we just can't seem to make, he takes the pressure on himself. By going to him in prayer, you are throwing your hands up in surrender and asking him to carry the weight as he guides you to the right decision. The steam. What does this mean to me and how can I apply it to my life today? Now you might not be facing any monumental decisions today, but let's be honest, sometimes the torture of choosing whether or not to have that extra cup of coffee in the afternoon or figuring out how to juggle the family schedule that day can be tough. Sometimes I'd like to give all my daily decisions over to somebody else to figure out, which is why asking for discernment is such an important part of prayer each day. And yes, you can bring it all to God. I may or may not have asked him for peace while I was meal prepping one week. Stop judging. As we work through our challenge of prayer this week, I want to add another component to your prayer time today. After you praise God for your blessings and re-center your brain a bit, I want you to thank God for his guidance today. I want you to ask him to highlight the things that need your attention and to steer you away from the things that don't. Ask him to give you peace over the stuff that you can't control and the strength to handle the stuff that you can. And certainly, if you are facing a big life decision or know you will soon, go ahead and lay that out too. Spend time asking him for peace and for baby steps. Ask him to lay on your heart what small things you can do, if any, but then to give you his peace during the wait. Ask friends, ask.
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