About prosévchomai

Share your prayer requests, desires, and praise in the comment section of the most recent prayer update.  Prayer requests will be updated frequently.

You may also share what God is doing in your life, Scripture, worship songs, poems, and stories.  Feel free to share original works, too.

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Why prosévchomai?

Timothy Young

Recently, while attending a conference, I heard one of the keynote speakers say to those in attendance, “The hardest thing to get people to do in ministry is pray.”  The conference was large, surpassing capacity, and lasted for two day and if you are anything like me, your focus can easily be displaced and you quickly are focusing on things like the most attractive people in the room, trying to figure out who is wearing too much perfume or cologne, or trying to be cool and attractive enough to meet new friends.

The focus is not on God.

I had volunteered to be an usher at the last minute and was nearly overwhelmed meeting new people over the two days, feeling somewhat pounded by the messages I heard (ah, repentance) and distracted by things like how good the worship band’s drummer and guitar player were at playing their instruments.  As an added bonus, I had the pleasure of running into old friends, some of them who I had not seen for a series of years.

Even with so much to distract me, the quote, “The hardest thing to get people to do in ministry is pray” stuck with me.  In fact, a few days after the conference, it was one of the few things that continued to replay in my mind’s eye.  Like a tree, it took root in my mind and I knew that God was teaching me something.

Why would a pastor who speaks to tens of thousands of people every year say something like, “The hardest thing to do get people to do in ministry is pray?”  This point started to eat ate me and I began to realize that I almost never prayed myself unless I wanted something or was asking for forgiveness for my sins.

During the same conference, another speaker said, “Jesus didn’t die for forty-five minutes and twenty dollars” and that our prayer time shouldn’t be taken up majoritively by pleads for forgiveness.  He meant that Jesus’s life and death meant so much more than attending church on Sunday morning for a short service and giving the minimum amount of effort and support.  He also challenged that once we’ve committed a sin, we know how not to commit the sin again and through prayer and practice, we can sin less and less and spent more time praising God in prayer.

I let these things sink in and take root and realized that they are true and not only that, but more than likely the truest statements ever made about individual walks of faith in the majority of Christian brother’s and sister’s lives worldwide.  I began to recall the dozens of invitations that were extended during church services growing up that were basically begging people to come and learn how to pray through discipleship courses, the many discussions I had had with friends in the past about prayer that were quite empty because no one understood and knew how to pray, and the innumerable amount of times that I had spent asking God for forgiveness and feeling guilty because I had fallen right back into the same foxhole again, committing the same exact sin that I had prayed for forgiveness for just days or even hours prior.

Realize, as I did, brothers and sisters that our faith will not grow without prayer.  It will stagnate like a dammed up pool.  Just think, God the Almighty, the Alpha and the Omega, the one without beginning and end, that can hold the oceans in one hand, He who can stand back and look at the entirety of the universe and beyond, has given us a way to communicate with him very similar to the way we communicate with our friends and family right now!

We are commissioned to share the gospel throughout the world by Jesus himself.  How can we do so confidently without prayer?  Why would we share it without prayer?

The Bible, God’s living word, which he gave to us so that we may know Him has much to say about prayer.  To list just a few:

Ephesians 6:18 says, “With all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”

James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “ Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

These are just a few of the many things it says in God’s Word about prayer.  To just begin to glean what it says, we see that God wants us to pray in all seasons (happy, sad, angry, depressed, etc.), pray for all other believers, to make known our struggles and pray over them together, that prayer takes away anxiousness, that we can make our requests known to the creator of all things, that we should never stop conversing with the Lord, and to give thanks.  All of these things are the will of our Savior, Jesus, for us.

In fact, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah prophetically proclaimed, “[M]y house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”.  If God names His own house a house of prayer, then how important is it that I pray?  That we pray together?

I don’t know about you, but I want to learn how to pray.  I want to start praying together, which is something most people are afraid to do.  I want to communicate with God at all times, not just during times when I want something from him or have sinned.

There are so many divides between believers, but prayer should not be one of them.  We should throw away our fears of prayer, forget about our guilt, and realize that we have been made new creations in Christ.  We have been told to share our prayers so that others can pray for us.  God has made it clear that prayer is mighty.  It is through prayer that we meet and talk with Him.  It is through prayer and time spent in His Word that we get to know Him.

Come.  Share.  Pray.  Love.

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Profile of Timothy Young

At the same conference that challenged me to learn about prayer and pray ceaselessly, a stranger said that he saw me as one of those lockets that people wear around their necks with pictures inside of them.  He said that this particular locket was in the shape of a heart and there was a keyhole in the middle of it.  He told me that God held the key and that God was going to unlock my heart to Him.

I believe that He did.

Of course, I am continually in need of sanctification.  I have to same struggles as everyone else.  I tend to lack in prayer, time spent in the Word, and miss opportunities to share the gospel.  I hope to grow together with others through prayer.

I was an English major in college and have served with the Salvation Army and helped provide community relief on a local level as a missionary in the Greater New Orleans area to those affected by Hurricane Katrina.  I have also taught English as a Second Language to Korean students in Seoul, South Korea.

In my travels, I have met many people from all backgrounds and from different denominations and visited many different churches.  I increasingly noticed that too often the focus was on dividing doctrines almost always concerning worship and spiritual gifts.

The focus often was taken away from instead of focusing on the saving message of the gospel and sharing it with others.

With this blog, I would like to connect believers from different denominations to share in prayer and teaching.

The other topics have their place, but how great would it be to share a bond together in prayer?  The ultimate focus is the glorification of God and the praise of His son, Jesus Christ who came, lived as a man, perfect, and then died on a cross where all the sins of mankind past, present, and future were placed on Him. Whoever repents, turning away from their sins, and believes in Jesus as their Lord and Savior receives eternal salvation as a gracious gift from God.

Please share this with your friends.  Post links to the new posts on your social networks when you see them.  Pray that the Holy Spirit connects people in prayer and worship through this website.

My desire is to receive prayer requests on a weekly basis and share them so that others can pray for them also.  I would like the center of this blog prayer.  Secondarily, I would like to make this blog open to others to share Scripture, what God is doing in their lives, music, poetry, and stories.  If you would like to be held anonymous, that is completely fine.

Here, Christian brothers and sisters can come together on a regular basis to see what Christ is doing in the lives of his beloved children.

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In heaven, God created seraphs to stand in His presence for all eternity.  Covered in eyes, they have been given the job of searching the depths of God; the same God who created the heavens and earth and holds them in his hand.  They never cease to proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!”  For all of eternity, these creatures never cease to be in awe of God.  They never see to the bottom of his majesty because there is no end to it.

A generation seeking to be like seraphs, searching the depths of God, would be unstoppable.  Delving into the power of Christ’s saving grace, learning who Christ is, growing in prayer, and sharing the gospel so that others will hear the good news of Jesus should be at the heart of every believer and this blog is only one way in which these things can happen.

Let us gather together and do this in prayer.