Turn your prayers into conversations

“Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?’ he asked Peter.” (Matthew 26:40 NIV)

Read this devotional as a prayer:

Help me, Lord, to develop a strong prayer life. I know you desire intimacy with me and that you want me to watch with you and pray (Matthew 26:40).

Yet I never seem to find the time to pray in a deep, fervent, consistent, persistent way. What draws me to my knees the most is when I have a problem, when I want something from you, when I need your help.

I’m flipping through my calendar, stressing with commitments, and you just want to hang out — with me. Help me turn my prayers into conversations with you that keep flowing throughout the day — an on-going communication, where I never say “amen.”

Keep me close to you, no matter what it takes. I’m not sure I really want to pray that; I have bruises and scars from whatever-it-takes discipleship, but, then again, I confess the crush of these moments have taught me to throw myself on the stone before the stone falls on me.

And that has moved me closer to the love that compels my obedience, closer to becoming one with your heart. So, I’m asking that you change my “wants” until my deepest want is to be with you.

With this I pray that you will create me worthy of my calling and that your power will fulfill every good purpose you plan for me and energize everything I do in faith.

My prayer is that your life will emerge in my face and in my hands, in my thoughts and in my words. I know your grace will make it so (2 Thessalonians 1:11-12).

Jon Walker’s new book, “Breakfast with Bonhoeffer,” is a message of hope for anyone longing for another chance at life as God created it to be. It is a story of God’s faithfulness, even through job loss, home loss, economic uncertainty, divorce and an incurable disease. Structured like a novel, it reveals how God works through our often messy and inconsistent faith.

This devotional © Copyright 2012 Jon Walker. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Jon Walker

Jon Walker is managing editor of Rick Warren’s Daily Hope Devotionals and a contributing editor at pastors.com. Copyright © 2017 Jon Walker. Used by permission.