Prayer

God has stopped me in the middle of my prayers a couple of times lately with a convicting thought. Are you praying what I'm leading you to pray, or are you just praying words because you know these people and circumstances need to be prayed for? At the moment I can't point you to a specific verse or passage that I can claim is the Scriptural source of that thought, but I have noticed something over the past few days. If I stop and ask, "Lord, how should I pray for this?" He inevitably responds with a direction. Sometimes it takes a moment of quiet listening, other times it's immediate. So, I am challenged today to make this a habit. I have even stopped at times to ask Him how I should praise Him, because I freely confess that there are definitely some days when praise does not flow naturally. This must become natural to me. It must be that I am praying His heart, not my own, for that is when the prayers are most effective.