The Life of Prayer (part 1- ourselves and God)

There are few books I could recommend as highly as "The Life of Prayer" by A.B. Simpson.  It is one that I have read numerous times and each time it has affected me profoundly.  As I have been reading it again, a few things have been especially significant to me, so I am going to share them with you folks.

The very things to pray about are the things that come to us with each passing hour and moment, and the meaning of the apostle [referring to 1 Thessalonians 5:17] surely is that each incident, trial or temptation, as it confronts us moment by moment, is to become the subject of special prayer; that we are to talk to the Lord about it, to take Him into partnership in it, to meet it in conference with and dependence upon Him, and to find in it, instead of an obstacle to prayer, an incentive to communicate with God and an occasion for His interposition in our life.

In this way, the ten thousand things that crowd our ordinary day, instead of separating us from God, bring us to Him ten thousand times and cover all the day with His presence and providence.  Even the very trials and temptations, which otherwise would have left behind them the shade of dark and painful memories, are lighted up with the recollection of His presence in them, transforming the curse into a blessing and gilding the cloud with the rainbow of His love.  Thus, through all the warp and woof of life can be interwoven the golden thread of His presence and His power, and the commonest things of life may be made glorious by reflecting His glory and bearing the impress of His touch.

I have, as I have mentioned on here before, an amazing capacity to overly complicate pretty much anything.  And if there is one place that I find myself stunted by perfectionist tendencies it is in my personal "spiritual disciplines."  Because I don't want to read the Bible or pray or whatever with wrong motives or methods, I tend to not do it.  So I've really been working through this throughout the last months, still striving to do things more Biblically, but also not letting my own deficiencies stop me from doing the very things that will sanctify and heal me, even from these specific deficiencies.  I constantly need to remind myself that the point isn't me, the point is this God that is the source, sustenance and satisfaction of everything I do and am.