This week’s Seek the Lord Sunday topic is Write about a lesson you've learned recently. What has God taught you? How are you growing? The first thing that came to mind was a lesson I watched during Bible Study this week. My Bible Study group is going through the Beth Moore study, Breaking Free. Our week’s homework concerned five major obstacles to liberty in Christ, and one of them is prayerlessness; that’s what the teaching was on this week. I have always struggled in the area of prayer. It just isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I’ve always felt rather unfeminine, to be honest, when I think of my weakness in that area, because it seems like most women are just naturally great pray-ers. I pray very well in public, which I find so ironic, because so many of my friends don’t like to pray out loud in a group. But when it comes to my personal life, prayer is not my first reaction in a tough or stressful situation; it is the part I always cut short or eliminate altogether when I’m feeling hurried during a quiet time; and I often limit myself to intercession when I’m praying because I have a hard time just talking to God and listening to Him, as if we’re friends in relationship. I think it’s true that this is one reason I don’t experience the same level of satisfaction that some others do in their relationship with the Lord, but when I heard the teaching this week, I realized just how vital prayer is. Beth made the point that without prayer, Bible Study is just more head-knowledge, but it loses the power to impact and transform us. Without prayer, service is just more work, maybe even legalism, because it’s not done as a heartfelt service to the Lord. It is absolutely vital in a Christian walk, and I am trying to remember to incorporate it into my day. That is the hardest part to change, too. When I’m in a quiet time and I’m rushing past prayer, I know I’m doing it, so now that I am making an effort in this area, it just takes some discipline to pray more. It’s the “throughout-the-day” kind of prayer that is harder to incorporate, because it just isn’t a habit for me yet.

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