I am HUNGRY

OK so we are now like 52hrs in to our church fast.....   AND I AM HUNGRY!!!!!!    I have been thinking about how hungry I am, and I have realized a few things.  First as a small (300 pound) guy I spend alot of my time eating and don't realize it.  Second I haven't died yet without food!   It can be done.  But more importantly I have realized how crappy my prayer life really is.  I haven't prayed as passionately as I have the last couple days in a long time.  I haven't asked for any huge things in my prayer life for awhile.  Maybe I have become lax in my faith or just use the excuse of being too busy, so I rush through a quick prayer a couple times a day and feel like that is adequate enough.  But what has hit me hard is thinking about how hungry I am physically, is that how hungry I am spiritually.  Is the pain in my stomach sharper then the pain in my heart for the lost?  Its funny but not eating food engages so many other senses; my nose can smell for a mile away.  But does my nose smell the lost and trigger my brain to reach out to them?  Has my prayer life really just became like my eating style,  just what’s ever in the fridge or whatever is fast and gives me a quick fix is good enough?   Have I really been praying for things hard enough, long enough or with enough faith to matter?   No I have been sucking at my prayer life and wondering why things are not going the way I wish they would.  

Are many of us Christians in this boat praying so lackadaisical that we forget even how to really cry out to God or to ask for his blessing for our marriages, children and churches!  So I have turned up the heat in my prayer life and have already seen some miracles that I usually just don’t see.   God has already done some amazing things and this fast is only a quarter of the way in.  I pray that this is just the start of my new life in prayer that when this fast ends my prayer life will keep going stronger.  I would see God clearer and he would use me to do some mighty things in his name!

So here are the big things I am praying for…

1.      That here at the Tree house children’s Ministry we would be a safe place for children to come and get away from the problems, violence and neglect in the world.  That we are in some way reaching every home around the church to break this poverty, welfare mentality!

2.     That over the next 6 months that 5 of our elementary principals will know our church and people by name as willing to go the extra mile for them.

3.     That the tree house logo will be seen as a brand that people know and trust in the community! 

4.     That man under the age of 40 will step up in leadership in the church and especially children’s ministry.

5.     That this fall we will take a big 1 day event to the big government housing apartments on Southside and reach out to the hundreds of kids who are told they have no hope.