Dear Friends,

Its great to be able to write to you again.  Its been a big week of hard work and I hope to quickly pen a few thoughts to help you if I can.

Many years ago I attended a conference on the subject of prayer.  I was only about 12 years old at the time, but it made a real impression on my life.  The speaker discussed the extreme importance of prayer and gave each of us a prayer outline of how we could pray.  He suggested we each begin at 15 minutes a day and see where God would take us from there.  Ever since then, I have been blessed to have lived a life of daily prayer and have had a lot of joy seeing God work in my life. 

I am going to give you an outline here today to help you also begin praying every day.  It will help you bring the blessing of God into your life and as you put it into practice, you will be forming a very good habit which can last for the rest of your life. 

Firstly, don't be overambitious and try to pray too much (unless you already do now) but begin with just 15 minutes each day.  Spend the first 5 minutes praying outwardly to God like this:

-thank God for all the good things He's done (there is always something to be thankful for.

-lay down all your needs and struggles, give them over to God.

-pray for spiritual growth and development to occur in your life.

-then pray for others, for your pastor, your country's leaders, your family and friends.

-pray for others to come to know Jesus too, and that the kingdom of God will advance and help many people.

-confess your sins and release forgiveness to those who have hurt you.

After this, then spend another 5 minutes in silence and meditation thinking on the goodness of God.  Use this time to listen to God.  God will use the thoughts and inspirations of your heart to speak to you.  I will write more about this in the future, but hearing the voice of God is a real thing and a wonderful blessing.

Finally, spend the last 5 minutes reading the Bible.  Try to read a chapter each day.  Begin in the New Testament at Matthew chapter 2 (chapter 1 is the genealogy of Jesus) and at this rate, you will read most of the New Testament in one year.

And if you do this every day, you will be growing in the ways of the Lord being blessed and being a blessing to other people too.  There is much more I would like to share (and I will in the coming emails) but don't have time now.

So remember to set aside 15 minutes every day to form this good habit.  If you forget occasionally, don't worry, instead just try again.  God is pleased to see you are trying to develop such good habits of living.

So a quick rehash on what to do

15 minutes - 5 in outward prayer, 5 in silence, 5 in reading the bible.

Start today and have a wonderful week.  All my love and prayers are yours from Mt Morgan in Australia

Cheers - David