Prayer changes things...

I've been praying that God would reveal to me things in my life I need to change. I know He probably has lots of things He wants me to change but He's showing them to me pretty slowly. :) I've realized lately that my life is entirely too busy. I worry and stress over small stuff that could wait until tomorrow. I'm a little bit OCD when it comes to a clean house. I can't have just one room clean and everything else not. If I'm cleaning I want to clean every room (or what's mostly seen anyway) and not leave anything undone. My house isn't dirty by no means but I just love to walk in from work in the evenings to a clean house. It just stresses me out in the evening to be so tired and walk in to be reminded that I've gotta clean. But.... here's the lesson learned. The mess isn't going anywhere. No I'm not gonna let it go for weeks or even days but it's not going to hurt anything to do a little cleaning then sit down and relax with my hubby. I'm starting to get the hang of this tactic.

I've also been burdened about my prayer life. I want to start a study on prayer this week. The busyness that I was talking about above can cause us to slack in our prayer life. My desire is to be in continuous prayer with my Father. Not only just to be in continuous prayer but to be careful of the things I'm praying for. Every morning when I wake up whether it's before I even get out of bed or in the truck on the way to work, I pray. Sometimes I catch myself hurrying through it. We learned in elementary school that a conversation is 2 people talking to one another. It's not a one sided thing. When we pray we should be listening for God to speak to our hearts. When I'm hurrying through a prayer I'm not waiting to hear from Him. Think of the things we miss when we hurry through our prayers. Now I do think it's ok throughout the day to say quick little prayers. I believe God still hears those. But if we are wanting to learn something from God we must have a certain time everyday to spend in conversation with God. Allow Him to speak to your heart. This may be a funny example but I think it has a little truth to it :) If a child is calling his/her mom and she doesn't answer normally he/she continues to call for them until they answer. We should be like this with God. Now I don't believe God will get annoyed with us like our mother's did and I believe as long as we have faith that God will hear us He does. There are times that we pray when God isn't ready to answer yet. This is when we continue to pray faithfully. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says "Pray without ceasing." Don't stop praying about whatever is on your heart until you hear from God.