This sentence from John 6 struck me -- “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes me will never thirst.” That word “BELIEVES” hit me pretty hard. Who am I to say “I believe” if I don’t come to him in prayer, asking for his help with the hard stuff? It was as if He were shouting at me (in a nice way), “You need to come to me and ASK and I will be right there to help you? Believe really believe that I can help you and I will!” This one sentence rang in my head for the rest of the week reminding me to ask Him for his help, no matter how small or large the problem seemed.
This was part of an email that I received from a friend of mine. It not only struck her, but it struck me also. Funny how the living Word of God will do that at different times in your life. You hear the same thing over and over, but one day it is as if you’ve never heard it before and it sinks in.
This email, the movie War Room, the book “3 Moments in the Day”, things happening in life, and my ultimate desire to actually have a real prayer life has prompted me to do something quite drastic. I cleared out my second room and brought all the bins to the garage and place them on shelves, I set up a little quite space and am using it for my prayer room/my war room.
I am devoting my last moments of awake time in that room. I pray in whatever fashion I choose – novenas, journaling, listing my prayer intentions, writing or re-writing prayers/psalms/ whatever, and/or just sitting in the quiet and listening as long as my brain will allow. I never actually thought I would do this. I had dreamt of it, but never really thought it would happen. Well, here it is.
This is a huge time in my life and in the life of these parishes and I am not going to be the one who drops the ball because I didn’t pray before going to bed. I can’t insist that everyone do that (Jesus has been suggesting this and modeled it for us for years and how many of us have done it so far ). I do know now that, even after only a couple weeks, I find that place a bit of a sanctuary and when I leave it to go to bed, I fall to sleep easier knowing that I have spent time with God (and a few saints here and there).
If you want to help your parish, your family, your community, your very self – I would suggest you start doing something such as this to promote this relationship with God so that when you do go to him you might hear HIS voice and be less likely to only follow your desire alone.