Go for a prayer walk in a forest

This week I had my first challenge for The Soldiers Challenge which was go for a prayer walk in a forest. As I live pretty much in the countryside you would think that this would be an easy task for me to complete. This however turned out not to be the case. With starting work recently I have still yet to find a balance between everything I want to do and the amount of time with which I have to do it. Also with travelling around the country this week there was no way to do the prayer walk before Thursday. But then Thursday is when the family all gathers together for dinner together. So that left either Friday or Saturday to complete the task. I decided that Saturday would be better to do the prayer walk because I would be able to be better mentally prepared for it. As things happened I ended up at work yesterday and by the time I got home I was absolutely shattered. However I was determined to not fail at the first hurdle and so I dragged myself down to the woods and set off for a walk.

When I set off I had so many thoughts running through my mind and really struggled to quieten my mind. To be fair most of these thoughts are concerning my future and God's plans for me and so while out walking I tried to make sense of them and organise them into some sort of logical order. I can't say it was the most helpful prayer session I have ever had but a few things did seem to me to become clear. The first is that I need to talk about these plans with my family in a much more open way. The second is that I need to seek advice from people who have been through the same process as I am going through in order to find out the best way for me to proceed. Finally it brought home to me the fact that more than anything I need to focus on learning more about the Church I belong too and continue to study the Bible in a regular structured way.

As I finished my walk and approached my car to drive home a simple chorus that I shared yesterday flooded my mind.

Teach me how to talk to thee,
Teach me how to pray,
Teach me how to serve you,
Better every day.

I think the reason that these lyrics came to my mind and have stuck with me since is that I really need to continue to learn how to listen to God. Although I know God is talking to me and that I can occasionally see veiled messages from Him I really need to learn to listen to Him more closely. With this revelation it really was no surprise when I pulled out the next challenge for this coming week, pray for 3 full hours. This one is going to be a real struggle for me, keeping my concentration and keeping myself from being disturbed is going to be hard enough as it is. Actually finding 3 consecutive hours in which to do this may be even harder. Nevertheless I will try my best and I intend to succeed. Please pray for me this week as I attempt this task as it will be a real struggle for me to complete.