Today we’re paying a return visit to the blog, The River Walk written by BJ Richardson. I encourage you to click through to read this at source by clicking the title below. Note: The link to the day’s scriptures takes you Bible Gateway displaying all the indicated scriptures on a single page.
Day and Night, Continually
O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night, continually. Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord. (Isaiah 62:6)
Read: Isaiah 62:6-65:25, Philippians 2:19-3:3, Psalm 73:1-28, Proverbs 24:13-14
Relate: I tend to read a lot. If there is such a thing as reading too much, I skirt that line awfully close. It isn’t just fluff that I like to read either. Some of my recent titles would be Summa Contra Gentiles (Brilliant mind, antiquated philosophy), Insurrection (reading Peter Rollins is like enjoying a train wreck. What stupid heretical things will he say this time?), Aids to Revelation (I like Watchman Nee but this was a disappointment), and Reaching Out (always love Henri Nouwen).
Goodreads says I have read seventy-four books this year. It also says I am three books behind my 100 book goal but since I will probably be finishing up Peace In the Post Christian Era by Thomas Merton tonight, I’m not doing all that bad. I have read between seventy-five and a hundred books a year every years since I started keeping track a decade ago. The most common question people like to ask on hearing this is, “What is your favorite book?” That is a tough one to answer. There are just so many. This year is a tough one, but I would probably say Bonke’s biography, Living A Life of Fire. Last year is much easier to answer. All In by Mark Batterson probably has had the greatest immediate impact on my life of any book outside the Bible.
Another book that joins All In on my short list of all time favorites has got to be Practicing the Presence. It is one of the shortest, easiest reads I have ever picked up. Probably an hour cover to cover. But it is also one of the hardest, most challenging reads I have ever read. Brother Lawrence was an illiterate monk who served in the kitchens half his waking life, and spent his other half in prayer. Over time, his discipline and devotion was such that, wherever he was, whatever he was doing, the man was in steady constant prayer.
React: I have my devotions in the morning. Then, by the time I have stepped out the door to start my day, my mind has run in a thousand directions. Someone shoves their way to the front of the queue to get on the bus or subway, and I’ve got words running through my mind that certainly not prayer. Little things throughout the day, some good, others… not, tend to pull my mind in a thousand directions.
God has called me to be an intercessor. I have no doubt of this. It is stronger in my life than that to be a writer, or a teacher, or a witness, or a… worker for Daddy on foreign soil. My primary calling is that of an intercessor. So why is it so difficult for me, for us to live up to the directive given here in Isaiah, “I have posted watchmen on your walls; they will pray day and night, continually. Take no rest, all you who pray to the Lord.” Why can I not follow Paul’s directive to “pray without ceasing.” I know it can be done. God does not call us to the impossible. Brother Lawrence is evidence of how it can be, but the discipline in getting there is…
Respond:
God, I come to You again in prayer. Let me never leave. Even though I have to step from this moment to continue forward in my life, please go with me. Help me to develop the discipline of constant and consistent communication with You every moment of every minute in my life. Help me to practice the presence of a life ever surrendered to You. Keep my mind from wandering. Give me a touchstone, or a reminder point that will constantly pull my mind back to You no matter where I am and no matter what I am doing.
Christianity 201 