I recently received in the mail a signed copy of Bishop Robert Schnase's new book The Balancing Act. It is a devotional, discussion book and it came at just the right time. I was needing new devotional material. It is quite thought provoking and I've only read three days! His first entry talks about balancing versus being balanced. We aren't ever fully balanced, but are always balancing. THAT takes a lot of pressure off.
The third entry focuses on prayer, specifically for pastors. I have recently done some self examination and prioritizing. One of the things I realized I need to be balancing is relationships/people and task accomplishment. I tend to go straight to the task. So, one of my commitments to myself was to be more people oriented in the coming weeks. I will be moving into a leadership role with a new group of people in June, so I have a great opportunity to practice what I've already preached to myself. Bishop Schnase's observations on prayer opened my eyes to one way I can focus on the people before that task - praying for them before the group starts and following.
I'm also going to pray for those who irritate me. It's harder to be irritated with someone if you've prayed for them. So far, so good, but I'm only a few hours into it.
How does prayer influence your own spirituality and your relationships?
3 comments:
I was once really angry with someone who was literally messing with my ordination process - a situation I could do nothing about except go along with the various (ridiculous) things I was asked to do....then one day I decided to start praying for this person...because I know we would encounter one another in various situations and I did not want to be angry or hostile or anything else...in the beginning all I could do was pray the person's name...but I figured God knew what I needed to say and what needed to happen...and it did. It was really great to find that inner peace in a time of trial.
mompriest, Yes! That's exactly what I was trying to talk about. I'm may have sounded like a trivial or trite discipline, but it's really powerful. Prayer does indeed change things, starting with the person praying.
I pray for my boss, for my mom, for my brother daily because these folks are all irritations in my life. I do find that it helps me to gain a new perspective, and while things may not change in their relationship, the prayer changes me and helps me to weed through toxic feelings so I can get to better feelings. So, kudos for you for praying for the irritants. They, probably more than others, need to be prayed over. It's easy to pray for those we like and love, but it takes discipline, and I think it helps bring us closer to God, especially with the hard, not so easy to handle issues in life and relationships.
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