Last weekend I attended the New England chapter of the CCCC’s annual meeting. It was a great time for worship, learning, and catching  up with old friends (as well as making new ones).

The speaker for the day was Rev. Dr. John Kimball who heads the church redevelopment ministry of the CCCC. I want to share with you one of his observations about chuches across the country: prayer is missing from the life of  the church.

I am sad to say I agree. For the great majority of chirstians today, the sum of the average prayer life is one part recitation of prayer on Sunday and one part grace at the dinner table.

I dont’t know about you, but when Mandi and I are not able to have time together to talk and listen to what is happening in our lives, our relationship suffers. If your relationship with your husband or wife  with whom you live and see on a daily basis can be quickly and negatively affected by lack of personal communication, how much more hurt do we bring on oursleves when we don’t take the time to talk with God whom we can’t see?

What I have been learnning is how important it is to take that time, to make that time a priority, a non-negotiable.

I have been learning that one of the most important parts of prayer is listening. I have found that when I ask God things, He often has an answer for me right then. But we don’t often stop talking long enough to let God get a word in edgewise. We often do prayer as if we were sending a letter to God, or maybe leaving a message on His answering service. We say what we want to say (which is often really just saying what we want), sign it with an “amen,” and then move on to something else.

I want to challenge you to hold off on that “amen” until you give God a chance to respond. Take the time to listen when you pray. And when you hear that answer, no matter if it is “yes,” “no,” “not yet” or “here is what I want you to do next,” then say amen and go and do what He wants you doing with joy and gladness. You’ll be glad you did.