DO YOU PRAY?

Lately I have been thinking and reading about prayer. James Montgomery, who lived in the late 1700’s to the mid 1800’s, wrote that we perish if we cease from prayer. We all know that we ought to pray. If you are like me, you may have at one time bought resources to help build patterns for daily prayer which served to revitalize your personal prayer life, but after a while these resources made prayer feel like a chore. For most people, prayer is a routine, a naming of items on a checklist and ticking them off as we pray through them. Is this what prayer is all about? Is there a formula or technique out there that makes prayer exciting and engaging as some make it out to be?

I have been reading J. I. Packer’s book, Praying; Find our way through Duty to Delight. In the book, Packer uses the word struggle as a realistic word to describe the typical Christian experience of praying. Packer goes on to quote an Anglican Bishop of Liverpool England, John Charles Ryle, who in 1852, wrote a tract that sold by the thousands under the title Do You Pray? The tract is now reprinted under the title A Call to Prayer.  As food for thought and reflection, I will leave you extracts of J.C. Ryle’s words;

I ask whether you pray, because a habit of prayer is one of the surest marks of a true Christian. All the children of God are alike in this respect. From the moment there is any life and reality about their religion they pray. Just as the first sign of life in an infant when born into the world is the act of breathing, so the first act of men and women when they are born again is praying. This is one of the common marks of all the elect of God. “They cry day and night unto him.” (Luke 18:7) The Holy Spirit, who makes them new creatures, works in them the feeling of adoption, and makes them cry, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). It is as much a part of their nature to pray as it is of a child to cry. They see their need of mercy and grace. They feel their emptiness and weakness. They cannot do otherwise than they do. They must pray.

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Shades of Prayer

As I was traveling to work this morning, thinking about God, about him as creator, and looking around at the trees and bushes and grass, the different colors of green jumped out at me.
I found a list of possible names from:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Shades_of_green

Army green, Asparagus, Bright green, British racing green, Camouflage green, Celadon, Chartreuse, Yellow-green, Emerald, Fern green, Forest green, Gray-asparagus, Green, Green-yellow, Harlequin, Hunter green, Islamic green, Jade, Jungle green, Kelly green, Lime, Lime green, Midnight green, Moss green, Myrtle, Office green, Olive, Olive drab, Pear, Persian green, Pigment green, Pine green, Sea green, Shamrock green, Spring green, Spring bud, Tea green, Teal, Viridian, Variations of green.

Did you know there were so many?
While I was driving I immediately thought of prayer.
Prayer comes in many different forms. Here are a few:

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