Day 11…James 5:16b

"The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

Notes from the devotional:

• In a culture of decline what can we, as men, do to effect change? We can pray for revival.
• We need to understand that nothing can be accomplished, either for ourselves or throughout our nation, without prayer.
• God still needs men who will give themselves to prayer and then go and do whatever the Holy Spirit tells them – men who will fall on their knees and cry out to God.
• Men begin the journey of being transformed into the image of Christ through such fervent prayer to God.
• As men become transformed, the course of a nation can be changed.

My notes:

• My first reaction is, yes we as men should be praying for revival and seeking to be like Christ to work toward cultural and national spiritual change. But in reality, men are no where close to this. We are falling dead on our face in this respect.
• I look at myself and see failure in this respect. I have always said that prayer is the weakest area of my spiritual life… but that is just a cop out. I don’t prioritize time to set aside for focused prayer. I allow too much to fill my head and distract me during prayer. And so on. I can’t continue to make excuses in my prayer life and expect to grow spiritually!
• I think most men struggle with prayer… we are so wired to be action oriented… to DO something… to storm the castle… it just seems that prayer may seem too “passive,” not Mr.-Fix-It enough, to be made a priority in our lives.
• But I think men are generally spiritually weak and passive relative to women BECAUSE we are not in prayer enough. I don’t think its a coincidence that traditionally women are more spiritually active and strong than men AND that they tend to rely on prayer more than men, do you?
• If I keep claiming to be a Do-Go-B Man (i.e., Do God’s Will, Go where he leads me, and B whatever it takes to get the job done), I think I really need to be in prayer more diligently to prepare me for just these things!

Personal challenge:

• Pray for your area and country today.

~~from Men of Integrity: A Daily Guide to the Bible and Prayer (1999)~~