Week One: Day Four
The Story
The community where Matt and Anna lived organized a special building project using individual bricks that children throughout the community donated. It continued brick by brick through the month of May. Each of these kids, by bringing individual bricks, made it possible to erect a large home for underprivileged teens to live within. The construction of this home is supposed to begin June 1st. Matt never wanted to participate in this sort of thing because he felt like it took too long. However, this new home was going to be built along his walking path to the bus stop where he had to travel each morning and evening to get to and from work.
Anna was the organizer of the month-long event and believed that it would help the community if they could see something being amassed little by little. There was an added benefit that it was being built through the help of children. Large companies in the area would donate most of the financial backing, but the children were the ones to bring the bricks as they became available.
On May 1st, the children began carrying the bricks. Throughout the first ten days, so many bricks were donated that Anna had to plan how to organize the donations for the rest of the month. Each day more and more bricks were given. By the 31st, there were clearly more bricks on the building site than would be needed. The community had pulled it off!
Matt had the daily opportunity of watching the mountain of bricks grow. He could not believe the daily progress. This inspired him to begin to think of other projects that might work best under this slow and steady approach. Matt was also inspired to bring this process into his personal and spiritual life.
The Devotion
The word prayer has about as many connotations as the word food. It can mean a hundred different things. Today, I want to encourage you to pray rather specifically for something.
Praying for your day before you begin each morning has certain benefits. The best illustration of how to understand prayer that I know of is that when you pray, it’s like sending up bricks to God as a tool for him to build a heavenly structure. The more bricks you send, the stronger and bigger the structure. When mighty winds blow, if you’ve only sent up two to three bricks, then your structure will not withstand the fury. However, if you have delivered enough bricks to build a fortified military outpost, you could say “good luck” to the evil one and his arrows of attack.
I sincerely recommend praying for each person with whom you plan to meet today by name. If you know that you will have meetings with certain people, lift them up by name in the morning, before you head to work, school, or the job site. You will be laying bricks for a spiritual foundation that strengthens your day.
The Word of God says to pray without ceasing [1 Thessalonians 5:17]. I’ve always thought that was meant to be like how there is always a guard at Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In some way, we were never to stop praying; never stopping to even take a breath. For a season in my early Christian life, I assumed this was how holy people spent their time. Today, I believe this is more of a wordplay. To pray without ceasing is to always be seeking a relationship with God and to always be lifting your requests to him. Do your best to pray in the morning, at midday and in the evening.
Praying is one of the ways we can daily respond to God. If prayer has seemed like a struggle to you, I challenge you to begin with short, one sentence prayers. Like any good habit you want to build, you will naturally and gradually build a prayer life that is sustaining and substantial. One of the worst things we can do as believers is to leave prayer solely up to our pastors. My goodness, even they need our prayers every single morning!
In summary, take time to pray. Be as specific as you know how. Pray with an outcome in mind and do your best to search out the will of God. You can do this!
The Bible
1 Thessalonians 5 | 2 Chronicles 7 | 1 John 5
The Prayer
“Dear Lord Jesus, I thank You that You have great plans for me; plans to give me a hope and a future. By prayer and supplication, I bring my requests to You and I am hopeful You will answer them. However, please let Your will be done and not my own. Give me just enough. Too much and I would disregard You. Too little and I would dishonor You. Thank You that You care deeply for me. May my prayers be heard and I ask that You would respond in perfect timing. Thank You! In Jesus’ name, amen.”
