Last week we talked about expectations of Christians that both the church and those outside of the church have. We then talked about changing our perspective and focus on being a dedicated follower of Christ. How are we to do this in an ever-changing world and society? Let’s look beyond ourselves for a moment.

Who are some people to whom you feel are some of the best and strongest Christians, a.k.a., followers of Christ? If you were to ask them what makes them strong, how do you think they’d respond? “Oh, I’ve been doing this my whole life and it’s easy to me.” Or, would it sound more like, “Following Christ has been the best decision I’ve ever made.”? Still others would say, “It’s hard to be like God because we fall so short and yet we couldn’t make it without being in a constant relationship with Him.”

Let’s look at ourselves now. Where do you personally fall in this conversation? Easy? Best decision? Or, just plain hard? Tough question and your answer possibly might depend on what day I ask you.

When looking at the saints before me and seeing those around me whom I consider to be followers of Christ, I notice there are two things they all, and I mean all, have in common: they pray and read their Bible! I’m not talking about an occasional nod to the man upstairs or a weekly reading to check off their list. No, I’m talking about a daily walk and talk with our Lord!

There’s nothing earth shattering about what I just wrote. It’s the Christian thing to do: you pray and read your Bible. Yet, so many of us seem to fail at some level in these simple acts of disciplines? Why? I have some theories from my own experiences. Let’s start with prayer.

• Prayer involves making our requests known to God. In this time of requesting, we admit we cannot do it all on our own. This can hurt one’s pride. Pride is something that I never see coming and yet it seems to hit me in the face multiple times.
• Prayer involves letting go. After we make our requests known, we must trust that God will do what is best for us and not necessarily what we want Him to do.
• Prayer acknowledges who God is and who we are not. We acknowledge the lordship of God in our lives and the fact that we give Him our all.
• Prayer is not only communicating with God, it is an active surrender. Surrendering daily can be tiring for someone who has trust issues.

As we close for today, I want you to ask yourself a few questions: How can you trust someone you can’t see? How can you give your life for “the One” who might not be the only way to heaven? Why do you pray when you pray?

Asking questions is not a bad thing to do. It’s always important to know to whom we are going to get our answers. We’ll talk next week about reading the Bible and how we can use the Bible, and prayer, to grow as a follower of Christ.

© 2017 Susan M. Sims

Photo courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net/David Castillo Dominici

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