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If all this seems to be a bit daunting or difficult, let us remember that God has promised to bless those who seek him and that there are rewards for spending time in prayer as he constantly assures us in the Bible in such verses as Matthew 7:7-11, Hebrews 11:6, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Hosea 6:3 and many more. If we really believe these promises we will not be reluctant to persevere in prayer and to take every opportunity we can to discover the blessings God has for us. Do you really believe? Let us also look at Jesus’ example. Mark 1:35 “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” You may have heard of the Christian jargon term “quiet time” which simply refers to taking time out from the busyness of each day to get alone with God, read his word and pray. Jesus himself, who was God in human form and totally one with the Father, felt the human need to get away to a quiet place early in the morning to seek God before the day’s activities. If Jesus obviously thought that this was so important that he would put himself out to seek a quiet place where he could pray before anyone else was up and about to disturb him, how is it that we often think that we can live the Christian life so casually without seeking God each day or relegate our time with him to a hurried few minutes crammed in amongst so many other distractions? It is good to set aside time to pray each day (the Lord’s prayer assumes this by asking “give us today our daily bread”) and how much time we give to this is a measure of our true priorities and beliefs about what really matters in life. We can be busy with so many things but none of it will achieve anything of spiritual value without the power of God’s Spirit at work in us as Jesus said, “apart from me you can do nothing,” John 15:5. An hour would not be an unreasonable amount of time to spend in prayer with the living God each day but if this 142