Fighting Prayers

1 Kings 8:1-66

Acts 7:51-8:13

Psalm 129:1-8

Proverbs 17:1

Tonight we watched "Million Dollar Baby," it was my first time, and what a downer!

This doesn't really have anything to do with the plot of the movie, it was just this one little scene that got me thinking about prayer...and I was thinking about it as I read about King Solomon praying over the new temple today too.

At the beginning of the movie Morgan Freeman narrates about how in boxing sometimes the best way to fight is to back off a bit...or something like that. And then Clint Eastwood's character kneels beside his bed, he prays for his daughter, and then he says something like, "and you already know what I want, so no reason to repeat it." Then Morgan Freeman says, "sometimes you back off so much though that you aren't fighting at all."

As I've been reading the Bible...I've said this before...I've been more encouraged to pray. I've brainstormed a little how I could begin to discipline myself to do that. One thought I had would be to pray the ABC's. Go through the alphabet and pray for everything that comes to mind...names that start with A...countries that start with A....issues or blessings that start with A...then B...then C...etc.

But one thing I've been thinking about is how I want to pray the things that reflect God's heart. So often we make prayer about the things we want. Like the character in "Million Dollar Baby." He simply prays for the things he wants. And it's not that that's inherently bad...but I want to be so transformed, mind, body, heart, and soul, that the things I want are the things God wants. And I want my prayers to reflect that.

The other thing it made me think about was how true it was, whether Morgan Freeman meant it like this or not, that prayer is how we fight. We fight the darkness, we fight the evil, we fight it all with the authority of Jesus Christ. We have the best weapon and not only is it a shame to not use it, but it's also a shame to only use it for the little gimmicky things we want every once in a while. I want to use prayer daily, not just when I have a desire, and not just when I feel desperate. I want to use prayer because Jesus is constantly burning with desperate desire for the world...He is heartily pursuing...prayer lets me join in on that action!

P.S. Only 100 days left! What!!