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It's Bath Time


Several times per week, my two children are escorted into the bathroom, stripped to nothing and tossed in the bath tub. Sometimes, if they are particularly messy, baths come even more often. Bath time for a 2 and 4 year old is more about playing than cleaning. In fact, they often ask to take baths on an almost daily basis. If we could muster the energy and patience to allow this to take place, we might give in. But, as it is, they are given baths several times per week. As my children grow, the necessity for taking a bath will increase dramatically. Perhaps it is the amount of physical activity they will participate in. However, I cannot imagine them being any more active than they are right now! Or, perhaps the need for bathing will go up as their bodies begin to change and hormones come into play creating new and interesting odors that must be addressed. The bottom line is that bathing is important from a young age to and old age. We must always bathe ourselves. We must do it continually or the stench of our physical selves will overwhelm us and those around us.

The Bible has many great verses in it. One of those comes from the short book of 1 Thessalonians in the fifth chapter. The passage reads: "pray continually." This 17th verse from chapter five would fall into the category of shortest verse, yet it packs a powerful punch. This verse comes from a paragraph of final instructions given to the church in Thessalonica by Paul. Amongst the list of instructions Paul gives, he lists this very short instruction to never stop praying. Many times you will hear someone refer to "bathing it in prayer." The idea is that we should completely and entirely cover the issue or the topic in prayer, much like a bath does to our physical body. We should take our cares, our burdens, our pain, our guilt to God, and drown it in our prayers.

It is no secret that as you grow in your faith and as your relationship with God becomes stronger, the enemy begins to attack more and harder. Perhaps it is time we begin spending more time in prayer. You may have gotten away with taken a prayer bath several times a week when you were young in the Lord, but as you grow and mature and the Enemy begins to attack, is it possible that daily prayer baths might be in order?

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