How do you assess the value of a ministry? Is there an instrument calibrating success, a plus minus chart that can accurately determine the worth of a Christian effort? How do we know if we should keep doing some work or give up on it? Is there a way of knowing we should persevere in an effort or "cut bait". Rarely am I as often facing the moment of decision of giving up or not on it with prayer as any other Christian activity I attempt. I have read every book I can find on prayer, attempted nearly every prayer strategy I have come accross, groaned through prayer, agonized through prayer, wept through prayer and fought tenaciously to concentrate while praying but have developed into nothing more than a rank amateur at it. Prayer may not be my biggest failure in ministry but it certainly is my most frustrated endeavor. In many ways, the more I pray, the worse I get. And yet I haven't quit and don't believe I should. I have never really understood why God does not periodically wrap me in a cloud of ecstasy as I pray, doesn't impress me with some jaw dropping revelation, doesn't mark my prayers every once in a while with miraculous "Godsends". I must lead the most boring humdrum prayer life extant and yet I keep going at it. I am not quite sure why I expect so much more in prayer than I get. I have certainly heard the testimonies and read the accounts of wondrously enraptured praying but I also recognize that I will never hit a baseball in a major league game, run a marathon, stand on the moon or sing solos in packed stadiums and most likely will never be caught up into the seventh heaven as I pray. I may be exhibiting a complete lack of faith here but my experience has shown me this mostly. My praying is not very good...not ever. I pray, not so that I will get but so that my Savior will get...get my time, get my devoted effort, get my best try, get me. I can make little of my gains in prayer but I have done it...and done it again...and done it again. That I believe counts for something! If counting even matters when speaking of the one who has thrown up so many stars in the heavens we have no way of know how many are actually out there. To just think that the one who placed the proton at the center of the atom insists I pray despite my meager, inadequate strivings is enough to push me after it again and let the "results" be what they are without my standard of determining what it may be.
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