For those of you following our Gutsy Faith Small Group experiment, we met on Tuesday of this week for the second time. Suffice it to say that our second week in Gutsy Faith got better than the first week, as one might expect. Unfortunately, we had to cut our discussions short due to time constraints of the work day. Some just had to get back to work. But this week really started opening up the can of worms and our young leaders seemed hungry to rip the can open and let the worms go where they may (sorry for the bad metaphor, but it was the best I could do after a long week of sleep deprivation – a long story – another blog for later this week, maybe).

The overall synopses of this week's chapters centered around the fact that God still calls his people to do miraculous things. When we ask Him for insight into where He's taking us, He says He will give it to us. When He does so, if we pray for those things to be achieved, believing in faith, we can be assured that they will be accomplished. The key lies in the strength and level of intimacy we share with God in our prayer lives.

Prayer really is the key to everything. I was really challenged this week about that fact. God really hammered me about it. To be blatantly honest, getting to this point in the release of this book has been a rough road for me and my wife. When I was working on the book last year was probably one of the busiest times of my life. It was just before a major event in Indianapolis that our company was supporting. In order to get the book done by my deadline, I took a week away from work to go write it at my parent’s house in Georgia. While the writing went well, I came back to a flurry of activities that I had hoped would slow down after the major Indianapolis event concluded. Little did I know how wrong my hopes were.

Life for us has not slowed down at all. In fact, it's gotten even more hectic. Without going into all the details (which would be another book entirely), our family's life went through major changes that could not have been anticipated. While many of these changes have been for the good overall, it has meant that everyday life have been far more busy. The long and short of it is that on any given day I wake up at 4:30 AM in order to go to the gym before work and my days don't usually end until 11:00 PM. The days are usually packed. Which means my prayer time, while it hasn't gone away, is a bit less than it was a year ago.

Sherry, one of the ladies in the group, made the comment this week that when life gets hard, the ability to pray seems to be easier. It's like we realize that we really need God during those hard times so we find ourselves praying more. It's in the calm times when the prayer time seems difficult. By and large that's a very true statement. However, I'd like to add to that comment. Business can be its own form of difficulty. It's not necessarily hard, but it can be difficult. Prolonged busyness can have an opposite effect to one's prayer life than the standard hard times. Busyness can demolish one's prayer life.

I've found that because of my lessened prayer life,
I've been less intimate with God than I have been in the
past. I miss my intimacy with the Father. I'm desperate for that level of intimacy again. OK, so crucify me if you want for just being honest. I've promised those in our group that I'd be as open and honest in my blogging as I've asked them to be in theirs. I won't back down from that promise. So, if I have heard one thing from God this week it is this: I must reclaim the depth of time I spend with God. He's calling me to do so.