Many of you will know I'm a Christian and I pray. I'm also off a year long half time sabbatical, so feeling much better than a year ago !
Leading into Christmas I was going through the Psalms as part of my devotions and when I got to Psalm 97, I felt that particular Psalm come alive. Whether it was because through the year so many friends and family were having a hard time, or whether my faith had been recharged with the sabbatical, I don't know, but as I prayed I felt to share such a wonderful promise.
'Psalm 97:5 : The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth' (ERV)
I wonder as we enter 2019, if we cleared the table of our minds, just made a simple list of the dozen biggest issues we had in our lives and then planned to set aside 5 minutes, 20 minutes or even an hour a day to pray for each one, where they all might be in one years time.
I've had the opportunity through sabbatical this year, to spend time, breathing, thinking, praying, walking - I reduced the chaos and busyness of life and tried to focus more on the relationship I have with God. It's been a different experience, but a great time.
Any effort requires some change, would we give up reading the newspaper and go for a walk and pray ? Would we swap out the latest Netflix series, and use the time to invest our prayers into those 12 things ?
So write your list, put it in an envelope and plan to review it in a years time.
You'll be amazed how many mountains/hills, just melted away when we spend more time in the presence of the Lord and those issues face more time at the presence of the Lord. Issues verses prayer is like the ice-cube of circumstance being faced with the fire of God.
This post is part of the daily blog - Memoirs of a Skinny Welshman, by Carl Brettle.
2019/6b/365
