The Privilege of Prayer!

Was chatting with my office-mate, Mike, yesterday and he asked me something that really stuck with me.
We were discussing the heavy work load of Handong profs and I told him that I felt like I was really "burning the candle at both ends" this semester. He asked me, "How's your prayer life going?"
It made me recall something my pastor said a while back that everyone of us could stand to improve our devotion towards prayer during a 24 hour period.
Since completing the "Experiencing God" bible study at our church, I feel that God has really made me a lot more "God conscious". What I mean is that I often find myself offering up prayers of thanksgiving, requests, confessions, pleas, petitions and praise throughout the day. (What I like to call "Nehemiah style prayers")
"The king said to me, "What is it you want?" Then I prayed to the God of heaven, and I answered the king, "If it please the king..." (Nehemiah 2:4-5)
This message (as well as others) shows that prayer is not a specific place or position but rather an open communication and dependence on the Creator of the universe (based on the finished work of Christ on the cross)!
So, in this regard, one could say that I am constantly in prayer looking to see God at work around me so I can join Him in His work.
BUT...on the other hand, I CERTAINLY could improve my intimate times with the Lord before the day starts and at the close of the day. (I've heard a good analogy that we should be like a CAMEL in prayer.)

• A camel before carrying his workload must get down on his knees.
• Likewise, when he is unpacking his load, he must again get down on his knees.

I've heard that traditionally, James, the leader of the Jerusalem church and brother of our Lord Jesus Christ was known as "old camel knees" for the amount of time he devoted to prayer.

"In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation." (Psalm 5:3)
"Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice." (Psalm 55:17)

...

AMEN!

"Either this book will keep me from sin or sin will keep me from this book."

How I love my Bible-on-DVD!

I ordered a King James bible on DVD from the website www.biblesondvd.com for $29.95 US. (I found it while searching online as I had remembered my Dad saying while I was visiting home this vacation that he wished they could get the bible on DVD and then he'd read the bible consistently.)
They also have it in the new living translation which is pretty good. (better for 2nd language students)
It's awesome! I have been getting into the Word much more. I try listening to one proverb each day (as there are 31-perfect for 1 each day!) and 5 psalms as well (as there are 150-perfect for 5 each day) in order to get through Proverbs and Psalms once each month. Of course, this is in addition to further study.
How awesome is God's Word!!!!
"But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night." (Psalm 1:2)

"Better to live in a tiny dorm room alone then in a large guesthouse with another single guy", I say!

My tiny (but comfy!) dorm room in dormitory #4. (Which is an all girls dorm except for 3 male profs on the 1st floor.)

Sung-Jee; one of my wonderful composition students (and last semester's grammar student) who I invited over for pizza tonight. (It was his birthday on Tuesday, April 5th, just 2 days ago!)

Another grammar student from last semester, IkSang. He's a pretty cool guy and he seems sincere about trying to follow God's will faithfully in such an unholy world.

One of my composition students, Il Hyung, who was kind enough to take our photo.

Mr. Lee and Andy just outside dormitory #4, April 7th, 2005

Kind Mr. Lee buying me an icecream!