También disponible en españolIn part one I talked about the importance of powering up our prayer life to support us through our race of face. Too frequently we allow the increased number of activities in which we participate to put us at risk of “injuring our knees” or relegating prayer as the last of our priorities, leaving us unguarded, vulnerable, and prone to road injuries. “In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don't know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words.” 5. Get Help [Part 1] [Part 2]
Perhaps we do not pray or do not pray enough because we do not understand what is at stake and what it involves. This is where we can learn a lesson or two about prayer from the proper care of our physical knee joints; in other words, what is good for our knees is also good for our prayer life. The MediZine’s article I referred to in part 1 goes on to provide some suggestions to reinforce our knee joints. Let’s explore their association with prayer:
1. Muscle up
Work out the muscles around your knee and your body core. In other words, exercise other spiritual disciplines simultaneously: our core, such as reading, studying, and meditating in the Scriptures, even using the Scriptures as your model for prayer and praying the Scriptures; and not forgetting the other muscles around, praise, worship, and thanksgiving.
2. Modify your Activities
Joints that you don’t use get bad over time. Use your knees. Find the right balance of your activities and make room for prayer in your schedule. Perhaps there are many things you already know you can give up while others you can give to God in prayer as a living sacrifice. I know some things pop up in your head as you read this… you already have some clues then.
3. Put Feet First
Your knee problem may be originating somewhere else. Typical solution: wear the right shoes for your foot and stride type. Recognize that other things may be hindering your prayer habits. Unisize shoes do not exist. In the same way, “one size fits all” approach to prayer usually does not work for everybody, so find the one model appropriate to your lifestyle.
4. Heat up, Ice down
Apply heat for loosening tight muscles and ice for swelling. Start your prayer asking the fire of the Spirit of God to guide your prayer; to loosen you up when you are uptight or anxious, or to calm you down when having a bad day or your temper swells to the roof. The Spirit of God is your prayer’s Tiger Balm or IcyHot® anointing. Romans 8:26 says (CEV):
Recognize when you cannot do it by yourself and seek assistance. It is amazing what I have learned about running and injury prevention from more experienced runners and specialists. Prayer partners, accountability groups, mentoring relationships, and our corporate experience of God can certainly guide us to have a richer and more consistent prayer life.
To conclude, we may sometimes arrogantly think that prayer can transform God and His will but we totally miss the point. Prayer is there to transform us, to make us stronger, to sustain us through our life challenges, and to help us find our way around life while keeping up with our race of faith.
Vladimir Lugo
vlugo@race-of-faith.com
3 comments:
Another great article!
Great article, I would like to add one more thing
Stretching - Although stretching can be uncomfortable, stretching helps our muscle and tendons extend to farther limits. We must also be willing to extend ourselves beyond our comfort zone to continue to experience God in new ways. Extending the limits of your spiritual comfort zone (ie. lift your hands in worship, lead prayer for a group of strangers, volunteer, etc...) will allow us to experience God in new capacities.
Absolutely! Stretching is so important in this sense that we have it marked down as a topic for future articles. A lot can be said about the prophet's call to stretch our tent curtains wide and our spiritual vision (See Isaiah 54:2).
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