prayer

We’ve all gotten back from breaks before and heard conversations like this: “How was break?”

“Too short!”

This goes for Thanksgiving Break, Spring Break, three-day weekends, Winter and Summer Breaks. Why is it that so often, we are not refreshed by vacations from school, no matter how long they are?

In the first post of this series, we learned about the necessity of asking in faith when we pray. The next lesson James teaches us about prayer is to ask with right motives.

You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? (James 4:2b–5).

But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord. James 1:5-8

As the CNCF upperclassmen study the book of James this semester, I’ve been struck by the specific lessons James provides on the subject of prayer. The first lesson we learn is that we must pray in faith.

The Puritans sure knew how to pray. As we enter the new year, take a minute to read and pray this prayer, taken from The Valley of Vision:

O Lord,

Length of days does not profit me
except the days are passed in thy presence,
in thy service, to thy glory.

Cole Tutino is a grad student leader for CNCF. He leads our weekly prayer meeting on campus, helps out with men's discipleship, and even plays bass at the Fold every Tuesday.

Cole moonlights as a cellist at the Jacobs School of Music, and he dressed up for the occasion to perform in my living room for a critical audience, including my 11 week old daughter Jubilee. She had a few pointers afterward, though Dewayne, Jake, and my wife Dani were more complimentary.