Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar.  He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.      (Revelation 8:3-4)

In last week's blog post, I talked about multi-tasking prayer versus focused prayer.  I think the reason I (and many other Christians) neglect focused prayer is that it is hard.  Have you ever had this experience?  You sit down to devote yourself to single-minded prayer and, within three minutes, you realize you are mentally composing a shopping list or thinking about a phone call you need to make -- in other words, not praying.  Our minds are so quick to wander!  What helps me is to write my prayers.  The act of writing keeps my mind focused.  When I have finished, I wad up the paper and throw it away.  If I were more dramatic, I would burn the paper and consider the rising smoke a symbol of my prayer ascending to God's throne, as in the passage from Revelation.  May the Lord bless you by helping you find a way to focus during your "set apart" prayer times.

Here are some suggested prayer topics for this week:

1.  In Galatians 2:12, we saw that Peter slipped into hypocrisy out of fear of what others thought of him.  I most often slip into hypocrisy out of busyness.  What seems to be urgent displaces what is truly important, and falseness is the result.  How about you?  Ask the Lord to convict you of hypocrisy when your actions don't line up with your professed beliefs and to help you remain true.

2.  The GO Team is traveling home from Poland today.  Ask God to protect them as they travel and to help them process and communicate all they have learned from the experience.

3.  I know several people connected to Calvary who are at career crossroads.  Perhaps you do, too.  Acknowledge before the Lord that He has prepared in advance good works for them to do, which include their life work or callings.  Pray that the Holy Spirit will prompt them to ask for His direction with sincerity, persistence, and willing hearts.  Pray that they will be attentive to hear His voice and obey, even if He chooses -- as He usually does -- to reveal only the first step of His plan, not the whole thing.  

4.  Entreat the Lord to strengthen the marriages within the Calvary community so that we can model for a fallen world His intentions for marriage.  Pray that the "love chapter" -- 1 Corinthians 13 -- would not be just a standard passage read at Christian weddings but that it would be a description of how we treat our spouses day in and day out.