2009: A Year of Prayer

For the past several weeks, the following phrase has been recurring in my thoughts: 2009 will be a year of prayer.

Certainly I feel challenged to increase the quantity of time spent in prayer (can any of us claim that we pray enough?), but more than the quantity of prayers, I'm challenged about the quality of my prayers. I'm feeling called to pray more boldly and specifically than ever before. I'll admit, that does not come easily or naturally to me. It's easy to pray generic prayers or prayers that require little faith. I think that subconsciously, the rationale is that if I don't expect much, then I won't be disappointed much if my prayers are not answered in the way that I would like them to be.

In other words, I can be a wimpy pray-er. And I don't want to wimp out any more.

Praying bold, specific prayers requires a lot of faith. I'll really be going out on a limb here. And sometimes I'm afraid of heights. So I can't exactly say that I'm overly eager to start ramping up the level of my prayers. But I know--I KNOW--that faith begets faith, and that the bigger my prayers are, the bigger the opportunity for my faith to stretch and grow in new ways.

Of course, I realize that not all of my prayers will be answered in the way that I desire. And yes, I will inevitably encounter disappointment and, perhaps, some discouragement along the way. But I really think it's time to leave my wimpy prayer life behind and really follow through on making 2009 a year of prayer. Anyone care to join me?