I’m coming back to prayer.

Not that I was that far from it.  Starting a church has a curious way to cause you to get callouses on your knees.  Each week is a new challenge, which causes that sense of crisis, which causes one to cry out to God.  But even then, the practices of faith such as prayer and Scripture reading can become routine and stale.

It’s interesting to me how the practices of faith have their own cycles.  Sometimes prayer is exciting and dynamic, other times it is as dry as dust.  But there is nothing like when God gathers that dust and breathes His life back into it.  It can create something that is dynamic because it looks like His image again. That has to happen over and over again in our walk with God.

We all need God to breathe His life into us.  Our part is to stay faithful, even when those practices go from a raging river to a desert.  Dead reading of Scripture is better than no reading at all.  Eating the dust of a dull prayer becomes a part of the refreshing when we feel the waters flow down from the mountain.

The key for all of us is to stay on task no matter what the season.  The dust becomes full of life and reminds us of who we are.  We grapple with our fallen nature and the image of God when we apply ourselves to seeking God.  It’s a part of this life.  May it be a part of your life as well.