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Friday, April 25, 2014

The Key to a JOY-filled Life: PRAYER!



           Have you had your JOY JUICE today? Just a reminder to start your day with prayer, end your day with prayer, and keep an attitude of prayer…always!  That’s the key to a joy-filled life!

            We’ve talked a lot this week about prayer—why we pray; when we should pray and even how we should pray…using the example of Jesus.  But let’s not let prayer become something complicated. It is simple, heartfelt, personal communication with God.  David Jeremiah gives a beautiful illustration in a sermon on prayer:

"Father Manning received a phone call from a stranger one day asking him if he would go and visit a dying man in the hospital. He went and found a man lying in a hospital bed with an empty chair pulled up next to the bed. The man told Father Manning that, at a time when he had struggled with the idea of prayer, someone had told him that prayer was just an intimate conversation with God. And that it might help if the man would set an empty chair in front of him when he prayed and imagine that the Lord Jesus was seated there, engaged in a conversation with him.  He wanted to know if thinking of prayer this way was theologically correct…if it was alright.

Father Manning said to him, 'It’s not only alright--I think it would delight the heart of God that you’ve moved prayer to the level of a personal conversation.'  A few days later, Father Manning got a call from the daughter of this man saying that her father had died. She said: 'When we found Dad in the hospital room, his head was laying in the empty chair.'  This man had come to understand what prayer is all about…a personal, intimate conversation with God.”

            Lay your head upon His lap, share your heart with Him…and find true peace & JOY!


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