"One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God" Luke 6:12 This past Holy Week I was surprised by how different it was for me this year. I did what I had never done any of the previous years... I signed up to be a part of the prayer vigil. Now, maybe for many of you this is completely normal; this may be an every day thing for you, but for me, it was much more. You see, I never truly take the time out of my day to completely give it to God in prayer. A time where there are no distractions, there's always something else in the back of my mind that I am trying to also focus on which ends up with me not even truly praying. Maundy Thursday I arrived at church for the church service, it went like any other Maundy Thursday service although I was just super excited to begin the prayer vigil right after the service. When the service ended I went around to greet people in hopes that they would quickly leave (in a loving way of course) so I could begin praying. I know for some of you this may be a no-no but I did put some music on, actually I ended up putting just a couple songs on repeat during the duration of my prayer. It just helped me to get into 'the zone' of praying. I started off my prayer simply by thanking God for all the blessings in my life. For my family, my boyfriend, my job, my friends, etc... As I was praying, the song by Lauren Diagle came up called "How can it be". (For those of you that don't know that song I urge you to take time right now to listen to it) She starts the song by saying "I am guilty, ashamed of what I've done, what I've become. These hands are dirty. I dare not lift them up to The Holy One." I immediately began crying because, don't we all feel that way at some point? Don't we all make mistakes we are ashamed of doing? But then, the song goes onto say "You break my chains,you overcome. You gave your life, to give me mine. You say that I am free! How can it be?" Read that over and over again. Listen to the words of this song. Take a deep breath and realize that God loves you. NO matter what you do GOD will always love you. At the beginning of this post I quoted a verse from Luke 6 talking about Jesus spending the night praying. You see, to people this verse may simply be skipped over quickly. "Yeah, so what? Jesus praying? Who cares? That happens all the time!" EXACTLY! Jesus prayed ALL THE TIME. What does that tell you? For me, that tells me that although Jesus already knew what had to be done and what he was doing, he was always in communion with his father. He and his father are one, as we should be. We as human beings don't even know the expanse of God's love and plans for us. So why don't we take the time to pray and find out? Take these fifty days of Easter and pray. Pray because you no longer have to live in shame. Pray because God is listening. God wants so desperately to have a relationship with YOU. Pray because our God is all powerful, forgiving, and he gave up his only son to die for us and give us the most precious gift. The Gift of Grace "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to ALL men." Titus 2:11 | |
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AuthorMy Name is Kayla. I am 22 years old. Loving my God and this life he's blessed me with. to vote on the subject of my next post and listen to my favorite song of the week click the link above!
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