Heavenly Father, I praise You for the ability to pray to You. That Your word tells us You hear us and listen to us. I praise You for being a God who desires a personal relationship with me and every believer. I praise You for Your patience and understanding as we often babble like a child about many things while it takes us, especially me, to get to our real requests and desires for You to know.
Holy Spirit, Your Word says: “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” It is good that one should hope and wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. [Lamentations 3:24,26] I have done over a thousand prayers for my prayer website. I have done hundreds of prayers for pastors, churches, missionaries, YFC, individuals, youth teams, and leaders since 2006. I have prayed and done devotions for mission trips, events, etc. I also like to take time and just talk to You, O God. As Jeremiah wrote, my hope, my faith, my anchor to living lies in my belief of who You are to me. I have been married for 36 years, and I am still learning each day new things about my wife, yet there is a comfort and stability to our relationship. I have been following You since accepting the gift of salvation when I was 16, which is now 42 years. I enjoy being able to talk to You while driving in silence to and from work sometimes. Taking time to take a walk and talk. Or the reassurance of speaking to You when I am facing trouble or a situation where I have no idea what to do. In all, I just enjoy speaking to the Creator of the world. I honestly admit I will never fully understand You, but I find comfort in our relationship. Though I have faced doubt in the past, especially when I found Philip dead in my office, I still cling to the only thing that makes sense in life to me: my salvation and hope of heaven. Even when I contemplated just ending it all, I was stopped short by the pain it would cause my wife and my desire to see Philip in heaven. I have no idea truly how You view suicide, but I think it best not to tempt You. I miss when I was a teen and had a rock across the corner of our road that I could sit on and pray, or the cement slab at the back of our barn that faced the open hay field and our small forest; both places were places I could just talk to You and then just listen. I learned to pray scripture so I could claim Your promises from my grandmothers who could pray heaven down to earth with their undeniable faith. I am nowhere near that strong in my faith, but I put my trust in You.
Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain! [1Chronicles 4:9&10] Let the words I speak bring life, not death; salvation, not ruin. Help my actions be righteous, and that as I humbly live, I serve You with all my heart, mind, and soul. With my name written Your book of life, so that I may one day come home and live in heaven with You. Amen.