Our twice-monthly Elder meetings always have full agendas with lots to cover, but one standing agenda item continually blesses these (long) evenings together: our devotional time. Devotional topics lately have discussed and explored servant leadership in the church, reminded us of our adoption through Christ and its implications, and recently explored “life through prayer” as the practical application of Paul’s exhortation to pray continually. We were challenged by a Tim Keller interview where he very effectively emphasized the need for ardent prayer among God’s people as they step out in faith to do His work. This fed discussion about our own prayer lives and, by exploring some concepts from Paul Miller’s A Praying Life, we discussed how to be more childlike (though not childish) in our approach to prayer to our Father God. Parents of young children hear unedited and often brutally honest requests from their children – this should guide our approach to God. Children “come as they are” and don’t try to clean themselves up first, or hide their real desires – Jesus says, “learn from these little ones.” So the Lord is teaching us to pray. We concluded our prayer discussion sharing with and encouraging each other on how to keep prayer central daily, and yearly, and on into a “life through prayer.”
—Clay Range, Elder
