25 and then some.

There's a challenge called 75 Hard. I'm not sure if you've heard of it. For 75 days, it challenges people to read, exercise, eat well, and strive to be a higher version of self. (probably. I'm not interested in it)

The caveat of the challenge is that if you fail any day of the challenge, you have to start over again. I don't know about you, but if I messed up, I'd be over. I would just give up just like that. However, the challenge isn't meant to force you to feel bad about you mix-up, rather motivate you to make your actions permanent in your life. I can't do 75 days. Well, I could if I tried, but I'll stick with 25 days to start. And instead of 25 HARD, it'll be 25 and then some. 

My challenge is simple: 
25 days. 
25 minutes of prayer.
25 minutes of reading the Bible. 

Why? 

Recently I've realized how little Christians pray. We might say a little prayer before eating, before going to bed, and perhaps when we wake up. We call on God to strike the person who cut us off on our way to work and we complain if the prayer in church gets a little wordy. Sound familiar? 
I wanted to see if I could redirect myself into being comfortable with prayer. A few weeks ago I had stumbled upon a video of a person saying, "We strive for eternity with God and yet we find ourselves dreading spending time in His word. How can we expect to spend forever with someone we can't even bother to spend 15 minutes with?" 

Oof. That hurt. But it's true. For most American Christians, the idea of deliberate prayer is foreign to us. We get to a point where we normalize that prayer is uncomfortable and confusing. Furthermore, we treat spending time in God's word like an elective class. We do it because we're interested in it, but find ourselves bored of the weight it carries. Right? 

So how do we reconnect that relationship with God? What will it take for us to get back to being comfortable hearing God's voice? What is possible when we find ourselves utterly in love with knowing God and with God knowing us? 

That's what this challenge is for. I'm not sure it'll work (I just started today. like will start in maybe 10 minutes) but I'm confident that no matter what, I will seek the Lord's heart like never before. And - this is the best part - I'm confident that the Lord will be satisfied with our offerings unto Him. He really likes it ( no seriously, read Psalm 51!) 

We can do it together, right? Let's try at least. 25 days from today is May 5. Make yourself a little calendar, and check off each day you are able to complete it. I'll be here every day until then. For real this time - sometimes I say it and then I forget, oops.

My prayer for us all is that the end of these days will create a new habit in us that will continue on from generation to generation, throughout our circles and into the world. 

For God's glory.