Thanks for joining us on this journey of building a consistent habit of reading our Bibles every day. The Bible reading plan we are using this year can be found here: One Year Bible or here on the Bible app. As always, if you miss a day, don’t feel compelled to go back and catch up. Just skip it and start back on today’s date. I am reading the NLT this year, but feel free to use whatever version you prefer. Now here are some thoughts from today’s readings:

“When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.”
‭‭- Matthew‬ ‭26:43‬

     What a sad story. The very Son of God can’t get His friends to stay focused in prayer for an hour while He is in His deepest distress. It’s easy to read these stories and think that we wouldn’t act that way, but that’s essentially what all the disciples said right before this. “Come on Jesus, we’d never leave you. We’re in this until the end!” Yeah, except in prayer.

     The truth is, we are in the exact same boat. We often fail to spend focused time in prayer with Jesus. Like the disciples, we have lots of excuses. I’m tired. Too busy. Don’t know what to do or say. And what happens? We too often flee in the face of opposition because we lack the power that only comes through prayer. It’s this kind of focused prayer that releases us for breakthrough and boldness. Fail to pray, fail to win.

Do you have a set aside, focused prayer time? How can you create one or strengthen the one you have?