From The Heart | Make Room For Prayer

**SPEAKER_1** (0:03)
Thank you for tuning in to the New Vision Podcast. Our prayer is that this message builds your faith, brings clarity, and gives you hope. Enjoy the message.

**Kevin** (0:16)
How's everybody feeling today? All right. Turn to your neighbor if you got one. Say, pay attention.
Say it in whatever language you're going to understand. Pon atención if you need Spanish. You're going to tell them to pay attention or just say, hey, heads up, eyes up. Keep your heart engaged. I'm so excited to get into today, but before that, I just want to make sure that we've met. So my name is Kevin. I just met my wife Mel, and we're honored to lead here. And we are very grateful that you are here, that you have joined us in the room, that you're joining us online. We are excited to get to not just do church together, but to do life together and share these moments in God's presence. And we have a very special night tonight. I know Mel mentioned it. It is our worship night. I know, look, it's a Sunday night. Some of you have like routines that you're like, man, I got a meal prep. I got to get my clothes out for the week. I got to do all those things. Look, there are very few things that we get to do together in God's house that you will regret later on. This is one of those things you will not regret the time that you spend in God's house, praising Him, worshiping Him. Need I remind you that in times that there are times in scripture that we've seen battles that were ahead that were taken care of with worship before the fighting actually started? And so maybe that's an encouragement for you that there are things ahead that you're uncertain of, maybe tonight your time in worship would be exactly what God intends to take care of what's ahead for you. So make some time. I know your meal prep might, you know, maybe you're a day behind. That's OK. You'll make up. I promise it'll be a great time tonight. Be here. It starts at 6 So don't get here at 6 Like get here at like 540 Get your spot because I'm looking to see like where some of you normally sit and I'm going to sit in your spot intentionally just to make you come closer to the front. All right, let's jump in. About a month ago, Mel and I went to a hospital call after church. And when we came in the room, we got caught up with the family and what was going on and everything that had been happening. And so as we were sitting there, eventually I just said, you know, hey, how can we pray? Let's pray together. And before we started praying, I looked at them and I just asked, how are we praying?
And that might seem like an odd question, but it's one that I frequently ask people when they ask me to pray with them or for them. And when I asked this family this time, how are we praying? They said, we're asking God for a miracle. I said, okay, now I know how to pray. Let's pray together. So we ask God to do what only God can do.
So we're in 21 days of prayer. How is praying every day going for you? I take it by the response that was so overwhelmingly loud that most of us are like, is going. Don't allow the enemy to make you feel like if you can't be perfect, you can't participate. I'm going to say that again because some of us have this thing ingrained in us that if we can't give it our all, we're not going to give any at all. And I believe that sometimes that served us well. At other times, it's been our cop out to not do things that maybe we've been uncertain with. And so I would tell you right now in spiritual matters, participate. If you miss a day or you miss a time, then ask God to forgive you or what have you, and move on and jump right back in. Think about this. There are times that you want to talk with your kids, and if they miss a phone call, you're not like, well, I'm not picking up the next time you call. Serve you right. No, you're looking forward to connecting with them. Our Heavenly Father is looking forward to connecting with you. So if your answer to how's it been going is like, oh man, it's been hard. I'm not doing great. I'm doing okay. Then just keep at it. Maybe last week you began for the very first time to pray any kind of framework. You started with upward and inward and outward. Keep it up. Don't allow prayer to become this thing out here. We talked about it very simply last week. It is us talking with God, not to God with him. So let's continue to do that. Let's build the relationship with him as we're honest about what's going on around us, and in us, and allow him to work inside of us. Keep talking with God. Now back to my first question. How are you praying?