Monday Morning Minute-March 21, 2011

Sickness has plagued my house, but ALAS! Meds have been taken and there is a light at the end of this tunnel! J

For those of you who look forward to our Monday Morning Minutes, I offer my sincere apologies for letting you down last week. I hope this week makes up for it!

Over the previous week, we have been meditating on scriptures about patience and on day 3 we came to a rather lengthy passage. It said:

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

Colossians 1:9-12

We know that we are called to spend daily time in the word and in prayer, but according to this passage in Colossians, those times of prayer should not just about ourselves.

Paul, the writer of this letter, writes that he and his friend Timothy have prayed CONTINUALLY and then goes on to list the eight things that they have prayed for. That the people of Colosse will:

1)      1) Be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding

2)      2) Be living a worthy life

3)      3) Be pleasing him in everyway

4)      4) Be bearing fruit in good works

5)      5) Be growing in knowledge

6)      6) Be strengthened  with all power

7)      7) Have endurance with patience

8)      8) Be joyful in giving thanks

That is a long list!! And what disservice I am doing to my friends and family and my God when I choose to not lift up in my daily prayers.

And I don’t mean that to be a heaping pile of guilt, but rather, for me, it has been an eye-opener of all the things we have to offer in friendship-more than maybe we even thought we had-just because we choose to remember our friends in prayer.

So what now? I know we are all busy and in the course of our daily lives, we tell people “I’ll pray for you” and then forget until the next time we see them.

Next time that happens…the next time someone either specifically asks for prayer or the Holy Spirit drops a name in to your heart, try this: Put that person’s name at the place you see the most. If you work on a computer, put a sticky note on the side of your monitor. Tied to your Blackberry? Set an alarm with their name to go off a few times a day. Addicted to your facebook? Change your profile picture to a picture of the two of you or to a picture that always reminds you of that person.

Whatever it is…DO IT! And see the difference, not only that it makes in the lives of others, but in your life as well.

(Look for this week's Bible Study notes and scriptures coming soon!)