“Yes I’ll pray for you.”  How many times have you said that to someone who asked it of you and yet completely neglected to do it?  It’s a stinging question isn’t it?  I’ve thought about this lately and had to apologize to a friend or two.  The more I think about it the more I realize how awful my prayer life is.  I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever had a proper prayer life, in fact I’m sure of it.  This post doesn’t speak well of me I understand but like many other posts they’re meant to be self-thearpy and also a help to others that read it.  I’ll gladly point out my flaws if it means a benefit for others.

Do we really take prayer seriously?  I hear about some talk about prayer and some preachers and I just long for what they speak of.  How much do I really want it?  We’re supposedly the children of God.  One of the evidences is we want to spend time with the father.  I remember a piece of a message my old pastor gave where he spoke about coming home from the office every day with his kids banging on the windows, and then clinging onto him like little leeches so he could barely walk.  First of all that chokes me up as someone who wants to be a father so badly, but at the same time the analogy is so incredibly close to how I think God feels when we run to him.  There is more to the idea of “childlike faith” than the innocence involved when we approach God.  There is also the joy and glee associated with it from both the father, and the child.

I’m not entirely sure how to make this prayer life a reality so it feels that way, but I want it.  Renewing my mind and praying for it (ironic) is the only thing I can think of.  I want quality time with the Father but to have quality time I must have quantity time.  Did you ever have or hear of a parent who all of a sudden tried clinging onto their kid to be their best buddy for a few hours out of the week expecting that time to be “quality.”  Quality time is a sham, at least in the way it’s spoken of today.  You can’t have quality without quantity.  Maybe after I log many hours in the Word and in prayer, God will show up in a mighty way.  Every time I drop a knee, I don’t expect heaven to bust open and fill the room with the presence of God.  While that’s nice to think about, I’m simply not there.  My obedience isn’t there, my devotion isn’t there, and my focus isn’t there.  Although God has “Unlimited Anytime Minutes”, do I really bother to pick up the phone?

Things need to change.  As I think about being a husband I’m terrified and at the same time incredibly anxious.  Marriage isn’t given to be my little slice of heaven while I’m here on earth, it’s to sanctify me.  I need to be a man committed to prayer if I ever hope to be the husband I need to be.  The greatest need in my wife or children’s lives is a Godly man.  I’m so thankful to have been given a Godly woman, and as we grow together in Christ things will become progressively sweeter.  If one man sharpens another then how much more so is it for a husband and his wife?

I’ll be honest I am just terrified to be given the call of loving a woman like Christ loved the church.  It will drive me to my knees more than any other thing in my life.  That is a beautiful thing.  But, I can honestly say I’m worried about myself.  Second to the Lord, my wife will see every flaw there is to see and know me like nobody else does.  That’s a sobering thought.  There’s no longer any mask to be put on, because there will always be her who knows my greatest weakness and will have seen me at my absolute worst.

When I’ve thought of Acts 20:24 and chewed on that in the last few weeks I kept thinking about my calling as a filmmaker, but the more I realize the truth, the more I see how much more that verse and the “ministry” it speaks of being my family before my filmmaking.  If I can’t get it right at home, then as Paul would say I’m not fit to be involved in any form of ministry, whether it be film or any other thing.  I consider them to be very similar.  It’s no secret that I take filmmaking very seriously.  It’s burned into the core of me and though God might take me in other directions that will never change.  Because of my stance on film and art as of late, I consider it a ministry more now than I ever did before.  I want to make films for the Glory of God and for the advance of the Kingdom.  But to accomplish that and accomplish it well, can I excuse my duties at home of protecting and guiding my wife and children in the ways of the Lord, if only for a little bit?  Absolutely not.  In that I would call God a liar and basically insinuate that I need to deny or disobey one (and arguably more important) aspect of His Will to accomplish another.  That isn’t right and would make God’s Will imperfect. (Romans 12)

I want to be a man of prayer and a man of God.  I want my children to know how to pray, and how to be more like Christ.  I want my sons to know how to love a woman and my daughters know what kind of man she should be looking for by how they see me love my wife and live out my walk in front of them.  I need to be more like Christ.  I must be more like Christ.  Greater than any other calling I’ll likely have in this world, whether it be filmmaking or whatever, none of it will super-cede the higher calling that I have to my relationship with God and to be the type of man I need to be to love those closest to me the way I ought to.

Pray for me.  Tonight I’m going to ask Christ to make me more like himself as sincerely and humbly as I can.  It’s a dangerous thing to ask for, but I want it.