Imagine skipping Starbucks for a month.

Imagine downsizing your car to save money.

Imagine that money building churches in China.

Daria and Samuel are church planters near Beijing, China.  Read their story here and imagine getting a little absurd with our money.

Return On Investment

A phrase many of us are familiar with. 

We all want our resources to go as far as they can.  The best bang for our buck.

Funny how I believe that is true… I desire a great return on my investment… and yet my time is poorly spent. 

Time is the one commodity you can spend and never get back.

So why do I spend so little time in prayer?

When I think about it… time spent in prayer has got to be a great investment. 

I receive a periodic email from ‘The Pastor’s Coach’ at Injoy.com.  Here is what I walked away with.

God has chosen to work through people. As church leaders we are charged with the mission He gave us. We all have a choice, we can engage the mission equipped merely with our leadership gifts and talents or we can engage the mission based on the time we spend on our knees asking God for guidance, power and blessing upon our gifts and talents. So, let me ask you a personal question. No one is looking – be honest. How much time and energy do you invest in prayer?

If your answer is that you fall short in the area of prayer, don’t let this become a road to guilt. That’s what the enemy wants. Think grace. But get in the game and pray. If you are tempted to ask “how much” you should pray, be careful, that can lead toward more guilt and even legalism.

It’s true that more time in prayer is better than less time. But the actual amount isn’t the point as much as your consistency, passion and heart behind the prayer. I am making a big assumption that you want to pray. But like many church leaders, you find the busyness of your life crowding out time for prayer. I urge you to make time to pray. Carve out the time. Make it happen. Fight for it. Let everything else wait. Whether you pray 20 minutes a day or 2 hours a day is between you and God. The point is to talk to God and listen for His voice. Beyond these set-apart times of prayer, scripture tells us to pray without ceasing. I’ve learned that, for me, praying without ceasing means to carry an attitude of awareness, dependence, and communication (listening) to God throughout the day.

Interesting how the gifts and talents God employs in me were never intended to be powered strictly by me.  They were placed inside me and designed in such a way to be power by God.  I know that… and yet I don’t act on it. 

Oh… the patience He has with me.  It’s amazing.