Live Free with Josh Howerton - Unpack Your Heart | Ep. 162 | Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Are you ever worried that you don’t have the “right” thing to say to God when you pray? God is not looking for well-rehearsed speeches but a heart-to-heart connection with His children. Prayer is an ongoing conversation with God, and we can confidently approach Him anytime about anything. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's Daily Drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. For more digital content to feed your faith, visit lakepoint.comit. And now let's dive in to today's devotional. Hey, what is up? So grateful you're joining us for a few minutes on the daily drive. My name is Mike, and we're a few days away from the end of a 21-day challenge to draw closer to God. And I've been praying that these 21 days will just become a lifestyle for all of us. And if this little podcast helps you do that, man, our time is well worth it. And as we say here, often we are all on different mile markers on our spiritual journey. So wherever you're at, just know that God is super excited about the journey that you decided to take. And we've been talking about prayer this week, and we've been learning that scripture tells us that prayer is powerful and effective. And we've been sitting in the advice that says pray as you can, not as you can't.

The only way to get prayer wrong is to try getting it right. God is not looking for well-rehearsed speeches. He's not looking for, he's not grading essays. He's looking for a relationship. He wants to connect on a deep to deep level with his children. I'm always loved what C.S. Lewis said about prayer. He said, we must lay before God what is in us, not what ought to be. be in us. Let me read that again. We must lay before God what is in us, not what ought to be in us.

Just unpack your heart. Be honest with him, in your way, with your normal voice. You know, I don't talk to my wife, Debbie, in some fancy, ritualistic, formulaic way. Never once of them I walk through the door and said, verily, verily, I say unto thee, oh, most majestic of all women, thou hast bestowed a bountable feast before me in the presence of mine offspring that thou hast born. No way. I just say, thanks for the awesome dinner around this table. Like, my favorite part of the day. I remember one time I was playing in the softball league. Played softball for a lot of years, way too many years. And I invited a new guy to play with us. And it was a bunch of Christian guys on this team. And one guy said, hey, before we play,

softball, let's all circle up and pray. So we got a circle. We all. all kind of held hands and the new guys next to me, and he's kind of like checking it all out. What are we doing here? And when God starts and starts going around the circle, and these guys are just praying these eloquent prayers, you know, that were pretty impressive, you know. And it comes around to my buddy when it's his turn. He goes, uh, dang God, these guys are good. And everybody just lost it.

And I lost and I thought he's the one that God heard because he was just trying to connect with God in a real personal way. So when you come to God, just talk normal. Come to him with respect and honor and awe, but with total confidence in his love for you as his child, knowing that you are now friends with God. I mean, some of you text your friends all day long, especially some of you students.

You find ways to chat. You love to talk to them. Look what it says in 1st Thessalonians chapter 5. Let me read it from the message translation of verse 16 through 18. Be cheerful no matter what. Pray all the time. Thank God no matter what happens. this is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.

That's just saying prayers is open, ongoing conversation between two people who love each other. And you have unlimited minutes, so just stay connected all throughout the day. Now, I think you ought to carve out times to be still and shut down distractions and talk and listen to God. Some of you do it early in the morning, maybe late at night, or maybe on a retreat or while you're fasting. But I'm learning that prayer is this ongoing connection with God. It's just living in the awareness of his presence with you all day long. You know, there's so much wisdom in this little line from Psalm 46 that says, Be still and know that I am God.

The phrase for be still literally means to vacate. We get our English word vacation from that word. Ever thought about seeing prayer as a vacation? I think in prayer God is inviting you and me to take a break from our busy, disconnected lies. To come down from the corner CEO office of our life and let him be in charge, he says, hey, I got a great idea. I'll be God today. Why don't you just go ahead and take the day off? So as you pray today, enjoy your vacation, enjoy your time with God. I hope you have a great day to day. Stay connected with him all day long and just see what he might do in your life.

Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out?

For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lake point.church slash daily drive.