Struggling

As per usual, I have been struggling to pray as the semester gets into full swing. Prayers that I can motivate myself to pray without feeling like it's a chore!

Goals

I've been thinking a lot lately about the goals of this blog and what I'm trying to accomplish through it.

More than anything else, I want to encourage others to pray. Not necessarily about environmental issues, although those are important, but just about whatever you're passionate about. There is always need for more prayer. I know that through this personal challenge I've been praying more, not just for the environment but also for people I know, countries, churches, causes, and people I don't know. Prayer has become a big part of my life, and I love it. I pray that you, who visit this blog, will try out prayer for yourself and allow God to transform you.

Blessings on your new year!

Quote

“Prayer at its best opens earth to heaven.”

~Selwyn Hughes

Prayer Block

I really haven't felt much like praying lately--or perhaps I should say that I want to pray except when I sit down to actually do it. I pray that God will give me the patience and perseverance to keep praying even when I don't want to, and that He will hear my prayers even if they are not asked for with my whole heart.

New Year!

It's been a while since I've posted here. I have been reflecting a lot on prayer and its power and where I want and God wants me to go with this blog and the challenge that inspired it.

I just read This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti, a book about spiritual warfare. Prayer is depicted as just so incredibly powerful in this book, as something that really can affect change. It really inspired me to pray a lot more, and hopefully I'll be able to continue to remind myself about the power and importance of prayer.

Secondly, I've decided to extend my challenge, and aim to finish praying for endangered species by the end of this year, so by December 31, 2013. I can't believe that it's already 2013!

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year!

Passion for Prayer

My passion for prayer has been rather small these past few weeks, to say the least. I've been busy and tired and stressed, with so many other things on my mind that I've been trying to work out with God. I'm not entirely sure how that all made me think not praying was OK, but too late now. I haven't been praying much lately. I've probably gotten through three or four days' worth of species prayers in the past two weeks. I've been feeling lazy, complacent, unsure.

Today I picked up the book This Present Darkness, by Frank E. Peretti. I'm not nearly done with it, but I've definitely figured out that it's about spiritual warfare. There are demons and angels running around, along with normal people. Prayer is shown as the only defense we humans have against those demons, as vitally, vitally important in the fight against Satan. I just suddenly had this urge, this passion for prayer. If it's that important, I'm going to do it.

How the Earth Was

Do you ever think about what the earth was like before humans?

It sounds wonderful to me: the oceans were teeming with whales, North America was full of forests and unbroken plains and mammoths and giant sloths and so many other amazing creatures that we can only imagine, and it just sounds so wonderfully beautiful and pristine. Dangerous, too, but breath-takingly gorgeous, and a wonderful testament to God's creative powers.

Photo source

It's hinted at in Scripture, too:

How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
²⁵ There is the sea, vast and spacious,
    teeming with creatures beyond number—
    living things both large and small.
²⁶ There the ships go to and fro,
    and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.

                             ~Psalm 104:24-26 (NIV)

When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

                             ~Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)

(see also Job 37-39, which was too long to put here)

All of these verses speak of God and His creative power. He created the earth, and He loved it ("And He saw that it was good" repeated over and over in Genesis 1). And His creation must have His fingerprints all over it--the creation always tells you so much about the artist.

Obviously, it's pointless to wonder what could have happened, and the past is behind us and can't be regained. But I still wonder sometimes.

Sources:
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society blog
North America During the Last 150,000 Years
Science Daily article