Sunday--Prayer and Partial Fast

I'M NOW IN THE THIRD DAY OF A 7-DAY PRAYER-INTERMITTENT FAST. Many things have converged to convince me I need to do this at this time, and even early on I'm finding it extremely cleansing and healing. It's quietening my soul and slowing me down to a crawl. So I've been on the computer only occasionally these past few days and, at least for the moment, not missing it.

Since I'm devoting much of this time to prayer (as well as Bible reading, lifting some weights, making fruit and vegetable smoothies and fighting constant distractions and some hunger) I want to link to an article on Tim Challies's site, Prayer Is Hard Work that hits the nail on the head for me: prayer is often very hard work, especially when it's done repetitively as a spiritual discipline directed towards God, not the outside world. Here's a highlight, but read the whole article if you're inclined:

Instinctive as is our dependence upon God, no duty is more earnestly impressed upon us in Scripture than the duty of continual communion with Him. The main reason for this unceasing insistence is the arduousness of prayer. In its nature it is a laborious undertaking, and in our endeavor to maintain the spirit of prayer we are called to wrestle against principalities and powers of darkness.

“Dear Christian reader,” says Jacob Boehme, “to pray aright is right earnest work.” Prayer is the most sublime energy of which the spirit of man is capable. It is in one aspect glory and blessedness; in another, it is toil and travail, battle and agony. Uplifted hands grow tremulous long before the field is won; straining sinews and panting breath proclaim the exhaustion of the “heavenly footman.” The weight that falls upon an aching heart fills the brow with anguish, even when the midnight air is chill. Prayer is the uplift of the earth-bound soul into the heaven, the entrance of the purified spirit into the holiest; the rending of the luminous veil that shuts in, as behind curtains, the glory of God. It is the vision of things unseen; the recognition of the mind of the Spirit; the effort to frame words which man may not utter. A man that truly prays one prayer,” says Bunyan, “shall after that never be able to express with his mouth or pen the unutterable desires, sense, affection, and longing that went to God in that prayer.”

ALSO WANT TO QUOTE from another post on Challies' site on the subject of humility verses pride: It seems a very noteworthy subject to mediatate and pray on during this prayer-fast:

William Farley (Gospel-Powered Humility)

Humility is the capacity to see myself in God’s light, in the context of his holiness and my sinfulness.

Pride is spiritual blindness, a delusional, inflated view of self. It is unreality on steriods.

Let me also include a worthy quote: “Here is the great paradox: the proud man thinks he is humble, but the humble man thinks he is proud. The humble man sees his arrogance. He sees it clearly, and as a result he aggressively pursues a life of humility, but he doesn’t think of himself as humble. The proud man is completely unaware of his pride. Of all men he is most convinced that he is humble.”

C.J. Mahaney (Humility: True Greatness)

Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.

Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon him.

Thanks for coming by today.