A couple of years ago, when my wife was still pregnant with our daughter, Eliana, if you have kids, whether you're a husband or wife, you know there's a lot of doctor's visits, a lot of appointments you have to travel back to and from the hospital to go get looked at and make sure everything's going okay. On this particular ride back home from the hospital, my wife was pretty close to the end of the ride. It was third trimester, and the pregnancy was difficult because of some health reasons. Shannon got bronchitis before we found out she was pregnant, and the bronchitis never left, so she was sick for the entire nine months. It was a really difficult time, and if you know Chicagoland, you know potholes on the roads, so drives to the hospital were especially difficult because of all the bumps that we would hit on the way there. Well, on this ride back from the doctor's office, I was getting ready to turn onto the expressway. It was a one lane left turn lane at a stoplight, and the arrow comes on, and I'm turning left. I'm in the front of the pack. Everyone's behind me, and I see this pothole, and I want to miss it because I want to protect my wife from getting bounced around in the car. So I hit my brakes a little bit coming through the intersection, and the guy behind me was not having that at all. He gets immediately upset. Obviously, he doesn't know what I'm doing. He just sees me hitting brakes when there's a green light. So he's riding up on my bumper, and he's laying on his horn, and he's honking at me. Okay, whatever. He doesn't know what's going on, so I let it be. I get onto the express ramp, and it's only one lane, but the guy behind me... veers off onto the shoulder and he starts to pass me and then he cuts me off, he gets right back in front of me. Okay, whatever, he wants to be in front of me, that's fine. And then he slams on his brakes and comes to a full stop, making us come to a full stop. I've got my eight month pregnant wife in the car with me and this guy's making me stop on the express ramp. I thought he was gonna get out of the car, I didn't know what he was gonna do. And I'm looking through the back of his window and I see him eyeing me, now I'm eyeing him and my blood starts to boil a little bit. He hits the gas, I hit the gas, he slams on the brakes again. This guy has got me trapped. And he can do whatever he wants. And I'm not scared, I'm angry. After two or three times of doing this, he takes off, I take off. I want to get this guy. I do not want to let him out of my sight. One of my struggles in life is road rage. No, I don't take it out on other people, but inside I'm fuming, I'm angry, and all I could think about is what I would do to this guy if I could catch him and get him out of his car. It wasn't me that was the problem. He had a bad day or something. You can see him driving down the highway, and he's doing the same thing to all the people that are in front of us. So it wasn't me, but I can't let this go. Shannon's trying to calm me down, but I'm angry. We get home in the middle of the day. We got a lot of the day left, and I can't let it go. I can't stop thinking about it. It just bothered me so much. We're sitting in bed, getting ready to go to sleep, and I wanted some time in the Word before I fell asleep, and I can't pay attention to what I'm reading because I'm still so angry about this guy. Man, if I could only see him and just tell him off, something, what can I do to this guy? So I prayed about it. I'm talking with God, and I said, God, I can't let it go. What is wrong with me? Why can't I let this go? And he said, Jonathan, you were taken out of a position of control. You wanted control over this situation, and you didn't have it. And he said, but the thing is, Jonathan, is that you never have control. You are never in control of your situation. You may think you are, and he said, but you weren't in control then, and neither was that guy. I'm in control. And he said, you have an illusion of control and you often get very upset when you feel like someone's taking you out of control. I need you to give that control to me. And so I was able to. Shortly after that, I fell asleep because the Lord gave me peace in that. I surrendered control to him and said, Lord, just have it. I don't have control of this situation anyway. But the thing is, is I couldn't have come to those conclusions without the Lord speaking to me and me speaking to him. Prayer was so important to my growth in that situation. You know, we're in this sermon series right now called Who Am I? This is a time where we're looking at the foundational bedrock aspects of our walk with Jesus, giving ourselves the opportunity to examine ourselves and have the Lord examine us in this time. But what is true in us? And before we go any further, examination of ourselves is hard. It can be difficult to do because God's going to show us some stuff about ourselves. But let me just preface the entire sermon with this, that as we examine ourselves today, the Lord never reveals anything to us with condemnation or with shame. You may look at today and you may examine yourself and say, this is true about me. How can I grow in it? How can I become more like Jesus? Even though this is a part of my life, how can it become more a part of my life? Or you might say, this isn't who I am right now. But the Lord doesn't convict us of those things so we can feel bad about it, so we can feel shame and condemnation about it. He convicts us of things so that we can make a change in our lives, so that we can move closer to him and experience more of his love, his joy, his peace and presence. And so examine yourselves today with a humble heart, willing to be changed and come closer to him because he wants to bless you. Well, you may have guessed it from my illustration and the emphasis on prayer at the end of it. Our question today is, am I a person of prayer? Not, do I pray, because most of us have said the prayers before dinner, Lord, thank you for this food, bless it to my body, even though it's McDonald's and it's got no nutritional value, bless it to my body, Lord, amen. All of us have said a prayer like that, but it's not, do we pray, it is, am I a person of prayer? Is prayer so intertwined into my very being that it dictates what I do and how I live my life? And when other people see me, they say, that is a person of prayer. Can we honestly say that about ourselves? Well, we're going to look at that today. We need to start at the very beginning, though, with what is prayer? I really love this definition of prayer. It's from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. It says, I think that emphasis on listening to God is so important. Prayer is simple. It's a conversation. But a conversation is always two ways. We don't monologue to Jesus, even though, even in myself, we monologue to Jesus sometimes. We go to Him and we say, God, would you do this for me? Would you do that for me? Amen. Okay, and we put Him back up on the shelf, and then we leave and kind of do our own thing. We need to make space to also listen to God just as much as we talk to Him. I think about... Pastor Carl's been hammering this really since the start of the year, and I love it. It's the prayer of Psalm 139. He's added it to his mornings. And it's this prayer of David. I believe it's verse 23 and 24, but it's Psalm 139 for sure. And it's a prayer of David. He says, Lord, search me, know me, try me, see if there be any hurtful or grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. David's initiating a conversation by speaking to God, but then he's also making space to listen to God. so that God can reveal things in his life, so that he can walk closer with him. In order to pray rightly and have a right definition of prayer, we need to include listening to him as much as we talk with him. Now, why is prayer so important? A great theologian, Charles Spurgeon, said this about prayer, that prayer is the natural outgushing of a soul in communion with Jesus. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more prayer comes out of us. And the more prayers we pray, the closer we get to him. Prayer and communion with Jesus have almost this cyclical effect. They feed into each other. You do one, you grow in the other. You do the other, you grow in the first one. It's almost like this... snowball at the top of a mountain. It's small at the start, a little stick is holding it up, keeping it from going, but that first humble prayer to God is like kicking the stick out of the way. Now the ball's rolling, and you're moving, and you're growing with Jesus, and as you grow with him, you talk more with him, and you spend more time with him, and that grows, and it becomes bigger, deeper, more powerful in its impact. That's what prayer is with our relationship with God. I think about my wife. You know, we've been married for seven years now together as a couple for ten. When I met her, yeah, I wanted to be with her right away. I knew that from the start. But I didn't walk up to her and say, hello, my name is Jonathan. Would you like to be my husband? Nope. I said, hey, I'm Jonathan. You want to hang out? Let's be friends. Let me tell you about myself. Let me learn a little bit about you. I started to talk to her. I let her know about me. She let me know about her. And through our conversation, we grew closer together. And as I grew closer with her, I wanted to talk with her more. My roommates would say when they, because we were long distance during our dating relationship, they'd see my text thread to her and they'd say, dude, how do you have that much to say to her? Well, I like her a lot, so I have a lot to say to her. It's the same way in our relationship with God. The more time we spend with him, the more we're going to want to conversate with him. And the more we conversate with him, the more we get to know about him, and the closer our relationship will be. And the closeness of our relationship is the most important thing about our walk with Jesus, because in John 15, Jesus tells us we can do nothing apart from him. You know, we're focused so much sometimes on bearing fruit in our lives. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. I've got to check these boxes. I've got to be more like this. I've got to be less like that. We're a branch, Jesus says in John 15. A branch has no ability to bear fruit in and of its own strength. You've never seen a branch on the ground cut off from the tree that's just pouring out apples. It doesn't happen. It can't. It's not connected to the tree anymore. Jesus, he says, is the vine. He is the life source. So we don't worry about bearing fruit in our lives. We worry about being connected to the life source. How do we stay connected to the life source? We talk with him. We spend time with him. And then the fruit will come. If you want fruit in your life, spend time with Jesus. You want to spend time with Jesus? You talk with Jesus. That's why prayer is so important. So now that we've tackled the what and the why, it's time to examine ourselves a little bit. And I want to say this. I come to you examining myself just as much as I want you to examine yourselves. The Lord speaks to me as I preach, saying, Jonathan, I want you to change this in your own life. I want you to change that. So I don't sit here speaking as someone who has it all figured out, but we walk this journey together. We examine ourselves together and let the Lord examine us together. But today I have five questions for you that will help you determine whether or not you are a person of prayer. This is not an exhaustive list, but it should give us a good understanding of what prayer is in our lives right now. Question number one, do I pray in my need? This is the one that's probably the most familiar to all of us, because even people who don't know God understand the concept of praying of our needs to God. You heard the saying, there's no atheist in a foxhole. A soldier who's facing certain death understands, I've got nothing else but God here, I'm going to throw my need up to him. People understand coming to God with your needs. And that's a good thing. It's not the only way we should pray, but it's absolutely a way we should pray. It's a way that Jesus prays and instructs us to pray. Now, if you have your Bibles, we're going to be all around the Gospels today. So I'm going to have the verses up behind me, and that's great. Also, if you have your Bibles, keeping notes in the margins is excellent. So we're going to move fast through these verses, but that's okay. Jesus tells us about praying in our need. He says in Luke 11, 11 through 13, Jesus is saying something really important. When he says those of you who are evil, he's basically just saying those of you who have a sin nature, who aren't God, who aren't perfect. If we know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will God take care of our spiritual needs? That's what he's saying. When he gives the Holy Spirit to us, he gives us his presence, he gives us his power. He gives us him when we ask for him. But he also takes care of our physical needs. He says... In the Sermon on the Mountain, look at the birds. They don't worry about their food. God gives it to them. They receive it. And look at the lilies. Look how beautifully they're clothed. They don't spin and toil for it. God provides it for them. How much more does he care about you than he cares about the birds and the lilies? God cares about our physical and spiritual needs, and he wants to answer our prayers in those things. Jesus prays a prayer of need for himself and for others. This is from John 17, 20 through 21. That whole chapter is called the high priestly prayer. It's a prayer that Jesus prayed before he went to the cross. He takes time to pray for the disciples that he's leaving and then also for us, literally for us as disciples who will come to believe that he won't be physically present with. And he says, I do not ask for these only, which are the disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Jesus had a need, and he was going to the Father with it. He takes the time to take it to the Father. How often are we freely taking our needs to the Father? Are we just telling ourselves he doesn't want to hear it? My stuff's too small and I can't take it to him. Maybe he's going to be angry at me for even thinking of this. And we just don't go to him for it because we don't feel like he wants to hear it. You know, when I was a kid, late elementary school, early middle school, I played in a basketball league. My parents would drive me to and from the games. And in between my house and the basketball courts was a McDonald's. And On the way home, I had a whole system figured out. If we won the game, I would say to my parents, yeah, that was a really good game. You know what we should do? We should celebrate with a hot fudge sundae at McDonald's. And if we lost the game, I'd say, man, that was a hard loss. I don't feel so good. You know what would make me feel better? A hot fudge sundae at McDonald's. Now, sometimes I got the hot fudge sundae. Sometimes I didn't get the hot fudge sundae. But you know what? I was never afraid to ask. It's my parents, it's my mom, it's my dad. They wanted to hear from me. They wanted to hear my requests. They were never upset with me for asking for the hot fudge sundae. Sometimes I got what I wanted in the way I wanted it, sometimes I didn't. But it was okay because I had freedom to ask. God is our Father. I wanna be so clear here because we say Father a lot. But do we actually see him as our Father? He has a relationship with us as a father to a child. So don't we have the freedom to ask about our needs to the father? Go to him with freedom because he's your, he's your, I'm going to stop saying father because it's almost too formal for our culture today. He's your dad. Go talk to your dad about what you need. He wants to hear it. You may get what you want or what you need in the way that you feel like you need it. He may answer in a different way and may not give you exactly what your heart desires when it desires it, but he wants to hear from you. He wants to be there for you in the midst of your asking. Are we bringing our needs to him in that kind of spirit? The second question for ourselves is, do I pray for my work? This kind of whittles it down to a more niche thing right here. Do I pray for my work? Well, Jesus prayed for his work. In Luke 6, 12 and 13, he was about to choose from, because he had a larger group of disciples than just 12. There were more people following him, but he wanted to get a core group to follow him in a closer way. And it says, in these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them 12, who he named apostles. Jesus understood the importance of his work. And he understood it was so important that he had no choice but to include the Father in that work. That's how important he considered it. And that's how close he was with the Father that he thought to bring the Father into it. Another chapter here in book, quick context to this that you're seeing right now is Jesus went up on a mountain with three of his 12 disciples, and there's the event called the Transfiguration. That's a whole different thing. We won't get into it right now. It's just building context. So he's up and away from the rest of his disciples. He comes down the mountain with the three, and he sees the other disciples arguing with a group of people. So he comes up and he asks, what's wrong? Well, there was a man who brought a demon-possessed son to the disciples who had casted out demons before, but they couldn't get this one. And so the man says, your disciples couldn't cast him out. And so Jesus casts the demon out of his son, and the disciples pull him away and say, well, God, why couldn't we cast out this demon? We've done others before. What's different about this one? And Jesus said to them, this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer. That tells us a couple things that reinforces the first passage, that God is, or that Jesus is coming to the Father with the work of his hands, because that's how important it is. It also shares with us that there are some things in this world that cannot be done without prayer. Prayer is that important that some things literally require it. Now you might be saying to me, well Jonathan, of course Jesus prayed for his work. His work was ministry. My work's not ministry. I'm a tax expert. I'm a mechanic. I make coffee. No, those aren't who you are. You're a disciple of Christ. You're a disciple of Christ who works on taxes, who fixes cars, who makes coffee. Your identity is in Jesus, and if your identity is in Jesus, your life is a testimony. What area for your life to be a testimony is better than the place where you spend a majority of your day? Why would we hang up Jesus on our coat rack as we walk into our cubicle and then pick him up when we leave? Why not have him sitting there next to us to bless the work of our hands so people can see the way we work and say something's different about you? Have an opportunity for your work, no matter what it is, to be a testimony of the one who's changed you. I have a co-worker, his name's Ken, at the radio station. He works remote now from Texas, but when he was here in Chicago, he'd come in after our morning show was done and he'd work in the same studio as me. And we'd be doing our own thing, he'd be working on some production stuff, and I'd hear him talking to himself over in the corner. And I'd listen, what's he doing? He'd say, okay, God, where do you want me to move this commercial? I'm thinking here, I don't know if this is the best spot. What do you think about this, God? How do you think about this? He was so intricate with how he included God in just the most tiniest mundane things of his day. But he literally had a conversation with God. Okay, God, what do you want me to do? Where do you want me to move it? How do you want me to do this? I don't know about this. Are you sure, God? He had that literal of a conversation with Jesus. As he was working, it's not like he had to go into another studio and take a 30-minute prayer time. He just made it a part of his day. And you know what? I've never met someone who cares about their job more than Ken cares about his job. He cares about every little detail. And he cares so much that he includes God in it. Do we care so much about what we do that we're making God a part of it? Or are we hanging him up and waiting for our day to be over and then we're picking him up again? He wants to be in that too. How much does he love you? He says, bring me into the work. I want to show you how you can do this. Are we doing that? Third question, do I pray in my fear? This is a really important one, and this verse that we're about to get to is going to prove it. Fear is not a sin. Fear is an emotion that we all feel. We are okay to fear. Sometimes we look at the Bible and we see how much it says, do not fear, and we think, oh, I'm not supposed to. If I'm fearing, then there's something wrong with me. Jesus was afraid. He prayed this prayer, Mark 14, 36, just before he was crucified and arrested. He said, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. Jesus was afraid of going to the cross. Fear is not the sin. Allowing fear to control our actions is the sin. Jesus very well could have run away and hid, gone into hiding and never be seen again. He wouldn't have been crucified. He says it after he's arrested because Peter tries to cut off the ear of one of the people who's come to arrest him, and he does cut off the ear of someone who's come to arrest him. Jesus heals the man's ear, and he says to Peter, don't you think that if I wanted to avoid this, I could call down a thousand angels and they'd be here immediately? If Jesus was letting his fear control him, he would have called down a thousand angels. If at any point Jesus was letting his fear control him on the cross, he could have been, okay, I'm done. And the nails would have popped off and he would have come down and it would have been fine for him. But that wasn't God's will. So he didn't let the fear control him. He came to the Father with his fear. And he submitted it to the Father. He says, remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. The important part is he's laying it down in surrender. And the gospels actually say that Jesus left from praying and he actually came back to pray this prayer three different times. So fear would come and go. And that's okay too. Just because we prayed and the fear's gone for a moment, just because it comes back doesn't mean that's a problem. We just go and we lay it down at the Father's feet again. Just keep going back. And you know what? there was a demeanor difference between Jesus in this moment and Jesus after he was arrested. When he's arrested, because God doesn't answer the prayer the way Jesus hoped it would have been answered. That's really important because sometimes we get mad at God for not answering our prayers the way we want him to. The Son of God prayed a prayer that Jesus didn't answer the way he wanted him to do it. If he can experience that, we can experience that and be okay. But when Jesus is arrested and he's standing before Pilate and the priests, he's unashamed about the calling that God's put on him. He stands there and he gives an account for what they hate him for. And he does it unafraid. Because he's committed it to the Father. And even though the Father doesn't deliver him, the Father strengthens him. The Father gives him what he needs to make it through what he wouldn't deliver him from. Sometimes God's not going to deliver you from what you're most afraid of. But it doesn't mean he's not with you. It doesn't mean that he's not going to strengthen you and encourage you to make it through what you have to go through. Jesus went through that same thing. He empathizes with you. Are we taking our fear to God? Or are we letting our fear control us? We're trying to run away from it. We're trying to hide from it. letting it control us. Fourth question, do I pray when I'm tempted? In this same time as Jesus is praying this prayer in the garden at night, he's got his disciples with him, he's got the nine off somewhere, and then the three that were constantly with him kind of in private were a little closer to him, and he told them, stay awake, watch, and pray while I go and talk with God. He comes back after this prayer that he just prayed. He comes back, this is just a couple verses later, and the disciples are asleep. So Jesus comes and he wakes them up, and he says this, Matthew 26, 41. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. I said this in a sermon a couple of months ago, but prayer is not a last resort for us. It's our first line of defense, right? We can pray before we're tempted with something. And God can give us strength to help us avoid the temptation altogether. Jesus is talking to disciples. Now, mind you, it's late. I don't blame them for falling asleep. They were probably really tired. They had a busy day. But Jesus says, I know your spirit's willing. I know you desire to follow me, but the flesh is weak. So pray that you may not even enter into temptation. We can pray before we even get there, and God can defend us. Now, we are going to experience temptation. That's a part of the human life. There are some temptations that will come our way, and then we have to deal with them. Prayer in those times is excellent as well. I love this verse from James 4, 7. It says, "'Submit to the Lord, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.'" We had someone on our radio station say this, and I don't remember who it was, so I can't attribute it rightly, but he said, you know, there's a lot of us out here who are so focused on the second part of that verse, resist the devil and he will flee from you. We're walking around and all of us are trying to resist the devil, resist the devil, resist the devil, resist the devil, and we're failing at it. Because like I said, we can't bear fruit in and of ourselves, so we can't resist the devil in and of our own strength. The whole verse is submit to the Lord. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. There is no resisting the devil unless there is submission to the Lord first. How do we do that? We come to him in prayer and we give it to him. On our radio show just on Friday, we had a brother from Florida call in. His name was Carlos and he was sharing with us a story. He's been free from drugs for two years and he works at a rehab facility. He got a call that someone in the rehab facility had relapsed and he was going to need to go into their house and do a search for any other paraphernalia. And so he did. The thing was is that Carlos was alone that day. He didn't have anyone to go with him. Usually a second person goes with him. And he's searching the house and what does he find? He finds two big bags of cocaine. The drug that he struggled with before he found freedom in Christ. And he sits there and he says, immediately my mind starts to flood of all the things I could do with this. I could sell it. I could use it. I remember how good this feels. The next thing he does is the most important is he stopped and he prayed. And he said, he's holding the bags of cocaine in his hand and he says, Lord, I can't say no to this. I need your help to help me say no to this. And after the prayer was over, he laid the bags of cocaine on the ground. He walked out of the house and he called the supervisor. And he said, I need your help. I can't get rid of this on my own. I need you to come down here and help me. And they prayed together and he was encouraged greatly in the Lord. And he did not fall to the temptation that day. Because he submitted to the Lord. And then the Lord gave him the power to resist the devil. And the devil fled. Whether it's before you even face it or when you're right in the middle of it, prayer is so important in our resisting of temptation. Are you praying to God? Are you defending your heart, your mind, your soul through prayer? Because God wants to answer that prayer. The final question for today. Do I pray to commune with God? All of our other questions are excellent questions to ask. But do we ever pray not because we need something to be delivered from fear or temptation or to pray because we need something or to pray for our work, but to pray just to spend time with him? Jesus did. In Luke 5, 16, it says this, but Jesus, he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. He would go to places where he knew nobody would be so he could just get some time alone with God. That was important to him. It refreshed his soul. After one of his greatest ministries, miracles in his ministry, he feeds the 5,000 and he multiplies all this food. He sends the disciples across the lake, or I guess it's the Sea of Galilee. He tells them, go on, I'll catch up to you. And it says this in Mark 6, 46. And after he had taken leave of them, the disciples, he went up on the mountain to pray. Jesus, after his greatest moments, would take time by himself to refresh with the Lord and just be with him. because his presence was good. Are we taking time just to be with the Lord, because his presence is good? You know, we say it in Christianity a lot, Christianity's not a religion, it's a relationship. I don't say this with condemnation, but I do say it with conviction, even to myself. Why, if we say that, Do we not treat our relationship with God like any other relationship we have here on earth? Like the ones we care about the most. I talked about my wife earlier, and this is a hypothetical. I'm not actually doing this. But if you came to me after the service today and said, Jonathan, how's your relationship going with your wife? And I said, oh my goodness, it's fantastic. We're just together and so close like never before. And you said, really? How much do you talk with her? And I said, oh, yeah. Well, like, before dinner every night, I thank her for the meal that she made. Sometimes when I really need something, I'll come and I'll talk with her. You know, when Thanksgiving's around and all my family's here, I talk with her a little more then. Otherwise, I don't talk with her all that much. But things are excellent. Our relationship is thriving. No, it's not. You could walk to my wife and say, hey, Jonathan said this, and she'd say, he said we're doing great. Dude never talks to me. How can we say that our relationship with God is thriving if we never talk with Him? Talking with Him just for the joy of being with Him is the most important prayer that we can pray. It says in the Psalms that God rescued us because He delighted in us. He saved you from your sins, not from some weird obligation that he has to do it. Because you're the desire of his very heart. Because he's jealous for you. Because he finds great pleasure in who you are as a person. What better relationship is there to be in than that one? The God of the universe wants to be with you. He wants to spend time with you for no other reason than because of who you are. Our relationship with him is so important. Be with him just because he's good. I love sitting with my wife and putting my arm around her and just talking with her because I love to be with her. God wants to do that with you too. He wants to put his arm around you and just be with you because he loves you that way. Let's love him that way. Sometimes we wonder and we question, why isn't God present in my life? Why don't I feel him? Why don't I experience him? Another quote that just came to my heart. Man, I can't attribute these rightly today. I don't know where they came from, but not me. Someone said, you know, we look at the disciples and we wonder, you know, why don't I have the experience with God that they had? Well, it's not because God loved them in some special way that he attended to them in some special way that he doesn't to you. It's because we don't attend and love him the way the disciples tended and loved him. That relationship and that experience with God is just as available to you as it was to them. But we need to tend to him, cultivate our relationship with him. If we say that Christianity is a relationship and not a religion, let's make it a relationship today. Let's go and be with him. James 4.8 says, draw near to him and he will draw near to you. Go and spend time with him. And I can tell you this, he is waiting with open arms and more than happy to spend time with you too. Got a why in the road for you today. Because being a person of prayer is not from right now not being it to stepping into it and immediately being it. It's a growth process. It's okay if you're not there right now. Let's grow though. Let's start taking our first steps. Your why in the road is this. This week, set an alarm for 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. and dedicate it to prayer. Now, I got specific because specificity for me is really important. If I don't make specific times, I'm going to not do it. So it doesn't have to be 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. It can be 6, it can be 545, whatever you need, just make it specific. and dedicate it to prayer this week. Pray about one of these things, just to be with him because you need something, your fear, your temptation, your work, just pray to him. Spend time talking and listening to him as well. And I promise, he will draw near to you. You will feel his presence, his power, his peace, and his love for you. And let's not make it a one-off. Let's make it a consistent habit in our lives. We start here and we grow. Let's pray right now. Father God, I thank you so much for how you love us, how you desire us and you delight in us. God, we love you too. And I'm sorry for the ways that I don't show it sometimes. God, would you grow us to be people of prayer, not people who pray occasionally, but people who have it so intertwined into our lives that we can't help but to pray when the moment arises. Lord, we love you. Bury this word deep into our hearts and do not let it come out easily. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.