The Year of Prayer - A Disciple's Renewal

Hello my friends

Welcome to 2009 :-) As you might have gathered from the title of this blog, 2009 is a year of prayer for me. It is something that God has been laying on my heart and convicting me of : to be more spiritually disciplined and to me on my knees praying for my family, friends, and direction for my life. In all honesty, these first 11 days have not been the most successful but God is growing me and teaching me how to make prayer a part of my day-to-day life. Sometimes prayer is frustrating to me because I feel like I should know how to pray but then when I start my mind wanders, I don't know what to pray for/who to pray for etc etc. So I have been searching the scripture to see what God teaches about prayer (if you have any thoughts/scriptures, I would love to hear from you...lundlf@hbu.edu) and am learning much (i.e. sometimes, the best thing is just to "be still and listen"). But if you think of it, I would appreciate your prayers for my prayer journey.

There is a book called "The Valley of Vision" which is a collection of Puritan Prayers. I have wanted it for a very long and got it for Christmas. I wanted to share a prayer from this book that is a perfect expression of my heart right now.

A Disciple's Renewal
"O MY SAVIOR,
Help me, I am so slow to learn,
so prone to forget,
so weak to climb;
I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart, my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
my sloth in the heavenly race,
my sullied conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.
I am blind while light shines around me:
take the scales from my eyes,
grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.
Make it my chiefest joy to study thee,
meditate on thee, gaze on thee, sit like Mary at thy feet,
lean like John on thy breast,
appeal like Peter to thy love,
count like Paul all things dung.
Give me increase and progress in grace
so that there may be
more decision in my character,
more vigour in my purposes,
more elevation in my life,
more fervour in my devotion,
more constancy in my zeal.
As I have a position in the world,
keep me from making the world my position;
May I never seek in the creature
what can be found only in the Creator;
Let not faith cease from seeking thee
until it vanishes into sight.
Ride forth in me, thou King of kings
and Lord of lords,
that i may live victoriously,
and in victory attain my end."