SOAP: Set aside special time to pray about the big stuff

Scripture: Luke 6: 12

One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.

Observation: This was just before Jesus decided who his 12 closest disciples would be. He was intentional in setting aside a big block of time just for prayer and went out of his way to make sure he actually spent the time in prayer before a major decision.

Application: Sure, I pray.

I pray almost every morning before and during my devotional/ SOAP time. I pray the Lord’s Prayer every day at Noon and I pray throughout the day about big and little things.

I think God, here, is showing us how, in addition to being in constant prayer through our lives, Christ modeled another way to pray: He set aside a big block of time (all night!) and went away from his regular routine and focused on prayer before he made a major decision.

God wants us to not just pray without ceasing, but also have some very intentional prayer times, as well.

When something big is coming up, I need to do more than pray here and there, I need to schedule time to just sit, pray and listen. If I can schedule time to accomplish so many other things, then I also need to schedule dedicated blocks of big prayer time as well.

Lately I have been intending to re-explore my priorities and re-set how I spend my time, making sure my priorities are in alignment with His for me.

Sounds like He is asking me to stop letting that prayer time fall off the schedule and instead get to it.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for sending your son to die for my sins and also to model behavior that is honoring to you.

Please guide me to stop putting off our prayer meeting to re-assess my priorities and instead follow through on setting our date and then showing up to ask and listen. Guide me today in finding that perfect time for this prayer request, writing it in my schedule and then spending some enlightening time alone with you for as long as you know I should.

Keep me from shoving that time aside in favor of tasks that ‘need’ to get done.

Thank you, Lord for this reminder.

And thank you for bringing me back to the Bible in a year reading schedule. I’m excited to be back reading more of your Word directly every day.

PS– If you’d like a quarterly bookmark to help you read and journal through the Bible in a year, send me an email and I’ll drop one in the mail to you.