Dear Friends,
We are in training.
By running and training yourself every day, you are in a much better condition to run in a road race. Likewise, the more often you come into the presence of the Lord in prayer, the greater confidence and freedom it will bring to you!
No doubt by praying we learn to pray. The more often we pray, the easier it becomes and the better we get at it. He who just prays when he has to or at a meal should not be surprised that he suffers ineffectual and infervent prayers.
Prayer is good. The habit of prayer is better but the Spirit of prayer is best of all. It is in the Spirit of prayer that we pray without ceasing, and this can never be acquired by the man who ceases to pray.
As we watch the 2016 Rio Olympics, it is amazing what distances, speed and endurance these female and male athletes can attain. Many of us have desired to be able to run like them but few of us are willing to take the time to train like them. Practice, repetition, discipline is what it takes to be an Olympic champion.
How much more for the Christian and their prayer life. It also requires practice, repetition, and discipline to learn how to pray effectively.
What about you? Are you growing in your prayer life, both privately and publicly? Are you, like Christ’s disciples, asking the Lord to teach you to pray? Why not consider training with us at our Wednesday evening or this Friday’s Prayer Watch?

“Long as they live should Christians pray, for only while they pray,
they live.”

[Adapted from C.H. Spurgeon’s Comments on Prayer from a “Puritan’s Garden”.]