Go Deeper in God’s Word and Prayer

This past year I learned to love Jesus more by reading his Word and praying more. During the pandemic I quickly learned that there’s only so much television that one can watch. Therefore, I made a reading plan. I designed the reading plan so that I could read through the entire Bible. What a blessing! Passages like Psalm 119 and Romans 5 blessed me daily. I discovered and rediscovered why God’s Word is so important to me. I started memorizing more and more Scripture. I encouraged others to get into the Word to find direction for their lives. I did this by writing more devotionals and posts.

I also read a few books to add to my passion for God’s word. I read Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster and The Call by Os Guinness. Both books brought some insight to the spiritual life. Foster helped me to look at spiritual discipline through the lens of enjoying each discipline by breaking them down:

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain.… This is the way it is with the Spiritual Disciplines – they are a way of sowing to the Spirit.… By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.

Guinness also help me to understanding calling in the life of the believer: 

Calling is not only a matter of being and doing what we are but also of becoming what we are not yet but are called by God to be.… Modern life assaults us with an infinite range of things we could do, we would love to do, or some people tell us we should do. But we are not God and we are neither infinite nor eternal.

Finding a good book can fuel your passion for the Lord. Books and Scripture also encouraged me to strengthen my prayer life.

Along with reading the word, I learned how to pray more. I pray about everything. I figured that I cannot handle what is going on, but God can. The songwriter wrote,

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer

Oh, what peace we often forfeit

Oh, what needless pain we bear

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer

Key Quotation

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain.

Andre Rogers, Columbia International University