When I encountered Jesus in my heart in 1979, I was invited to join a formal discipleship training process by Ron, a Protestant youth evangelist who invested the time needed to earn the right to be heard. As I grew in relationship with Ron, he began to ask questions about Jesus and what I believed about Him.
After my conversion, Ron invited me to become his disciple. I accepted his invitation, and over the next six months he trained me to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. It was within these weekly meetings that I was introduced to the four fundamental disciplines of a disciple of Christ – one of which was Daily Prayer.
December 17, 2019 will mark forty years of striving to follow Christ into eternity. Over that time I have learned many methods of prayer and growing in intimacy with the Holy Spirit. I wish I could tell you that, after forty years, the discipline of prayer is no longer difficult; that in these years, I have settled into a pattern of prayer that makes it easy to commune with God.
The truth is that I have grown to long for and make time for Jesus, but it still requires discipline. Our lives are filled with seasons, challenges, and enemies that all play a role in distracting us from maintaining an effective prayer life. It will always take work.
Every disciple must learn to die the death of getting in the chair!
When I am working with my disciples and helping them become disciples of Jesus, one of the critical focuses I have is daily prayer. I see it as my responsibility to help my disciples establish a habit of daily prayer. I encourage them to create a space and get a chair to sit in where they will spend time in prayer.
To create the habit of prayer requires the death of yielding time, focus, energy and your heart in prayer to be with Jesus. Satan and his demons are working overtime to stop your prayer life. It is in fact the first step toward engaging in mortal sin. It always begins with ceasing to pray.
Once the habit of prayer is established, other battlegrounds surface where we must die in prayer. I was convicted by the Holy Spirit about the quality of my prayer time. I was obedient in putting in the time, but I was not seeking to encounter the Lord. How does one keep their heart open and yearning toward the Lord?
They must constantly ask the Spirit to reveal to them when they are growing cold. Once revealed, they must return to the chair and die. During this Lent, ask for the graces to see and die, that we might experience the fire of God’s love in our hearts!
This aligns with what God is revealing to me about prayer. I made the commitment to pray the rosary daily. Sometimes, I’m driving, doing laundry, or sitting beside a child watching a fun show (again…). Gently, I felt the Lord leading me to carve out time exclusively for prayer. So, as I sit here in a cozy chair, reading your musing, I realize our Lady, in her motherly way, (years ago) led me to the Chaplet of Divine Mercy – which led me to the Rosary – and now leads me to this chair.
God bless you for your faithfulness & stubbornness of the saints to continue to preach while being molded by the Father.
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for adding great insights to the conversation.
I was just pondering how a blind person learns to know someone they can’t see. Their heightened sense of hearing enables them to not only identify their voice but also enter into conversations of deep sharing.
That sounds like what you were describing.
It will never happens unless we get in the chair!!!
Ralph,
You are an evangelist extraordinaire, to be sure. I pray that you continue to bear much fruit and that I might be even a fraction as effective as you are in being a channel if God’s grace. Thank you for steadfast work.
In my mind, I reserve the term “disciple” for Jesus Christ of whom we all should be striving for – to become his disciple. I recall Paul saying, “Let there be no factions; rather be united in mind and judgement….” (1 Cor 10)
With you, a migrant in the field,
dave
Humble thanks, David, I will count on those prayers. If you’re willing, please sign up to be a prayer warrior. I’ll put you to work.
I loved the line – “we might experience the fire of God’s love in our hearts! Such a beautiful expression – I also love the words “Die in the Chair”
The eternal question – how can we get individuals to understand they really have to die in the Chair to experience God’s Love in their heart.
God Bless my Brother Ralph.
When ever I tell individuals I have this fire in my heart for God – many kind of look at me strangely – – what has he been smoking.
So True Edward!!!