I am a man on a journey.

My journey began many years ago – dare I say decades – when I began to follow Jesus as junior high student.  In a great church environment I was taught how to live and walk with God.  This upbringing transformed me into a wide-eyed, hopeful young man who felt a calling to shepherd others.  I was ready to change the world!

Off to college and ministry as a student.  Sharing the gospel with a number of my friends, God provided mentors who taught me how to help people along on their spiritual journey.  I learned how to help people grow spiritually and how to teach others from the Bible.  Being used so tangibly by God, he felt closer than ever.  I could see and hear him at work all around me.  At the end of my undergraduate career, I felt led to join the staff of a parachurch campus ministry.

“Looking at my life at the start of this blog, my prayer life was basically zero.”

My new wife and I served for several years on college campuses sharing the Gospel, leading small groups and mentoring students individually.  As time went on we felt a growing heart for the church and a need to be more directly a part of it.  We started by leading small groups at our church.

“The walk with God was no longer the parade down main street, a party for all who saw it.  It had become a lonely hike up a steep, winding, and rocky mountain trail”.

It was a time when I was forced to sit down and ask some tough questions.  What is God really like?  How do you balance revealed truth with experience?  What makes one’s walk with God close?  Or distant?

It is only recently that I have come to recognize the importance of prayer.  It is common knowledge that to have a good marriage, you must communicate with your spouse.  You have to talk to each other.  Yet we expect to be able to be close to God with out ever talking to him.  Or listening to him.  It also occurred to me that the time where I felt closest to God, and his hand was most evident in my life – were times when I prayed constantly.

“Then came the challenge, and the inspiration for this blog.  I decided that instead of wondering what it would be like, I decided to try it out.”

Looking at my life at the start of this blog, my prayer life was basically zero.  Struggling with the demands we all have to balance – work, family, church – I simply was not praying.  So I began to wonder what my life would be like if I actually prayed every day.

I decided, and committed to, praying every day for thirty minutes a day for one year – just to see what would happen.  I hope to learn about prayer, and about different ways to pray along the way.  I invite you to join me on this journey.