As I was seeking God in December about this year, I was also very aware of some areas of vulnerability in my life. One such shortcoming was this: I was not as consistent in set-apart prayer time as I had been in the past. Sure, I talked to God on and off throughout the day and enjoyed hearing from Him in the surprising ways He would \u201cdrop in on me\u201d, but I knew He was re-directing me to a more focused, disciplined pursuit.<\/p>\n
And as He would have it, one of those surprise \u201cdrop-ins\u201d came as I was wrapping up reading through the Old Testament in the book of Amos. I read<\/p>\n
\u201cDo two men walk together unless they have made an appointment?<\/em>\u201d Amos 3:3, NASB<\/p>\n Now this verse is more famously quoted this way: \u201cCan two walk together, except they be agreed?<\/em>\u201d (KJV) That\u2019s how I\u2019d always heard it preached\u2014we need agreement with one another to accomplish God\u2019s work; we need to be in agreement with God to walk in His ways.<\/p>\n However, this word\u00a0\u201cappointment\u201d jumped off the page at me. My complacent lethargy concerning daily prayer was in for a makeover! And it all had to do with making an appointment with God.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how God directed me. He reminded me that I made appointments with the dentist and the doctor\u2014and that I kept those appointments. I also remembered that when I met a friend for coffee, we would text each other ahead of time to confirm our meeting. Basically, the Lord showed me that most of my dealings with others involved appointment making\u2014and by the same token, the way to return to my first love and zeal for<\/em> Him simply involved making and keeping appointments with<\/em> Him.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s what I did: Before I\u00a0would go\u00a0to bed, I asked the Lord, \u201cWhat time tomorrow is our appointment?\u201d and I\u2019d hear a time and would agree to meet with Him then. Simple\u2026yet profoundly helpful.<\/p>\n Are you having difficulty finding time to set apart for God? Then call out to Him, set up an appointment, and then show up. Then do it again the next day.<\/p>\n A funny thing started happening soon after I began those appointments\u2026I seemed to blunder into divine appointments and supernatural unfoldings more and more in my everyday life. And then it dawned on me\u2014I was honoring the appointment<\/em> part of the verse, and God was showing up in the walking together<\/em> part!<\/p>\n Now don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I\u2019ve missed an appointment or two since that verse jumped out at me. But I know how to make my way back to Him quickly and to pick back up: I make an appointment and keep it!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s to walking with the Lord persistently and consistently!<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I was seeking God in December about this year, I was also very aware of some areas of vulnerability in my life. One such shortcoming was this: I was not as consistent in set-apart prayer time as I had been in the past. Sure, I talked to God on and off throughout the day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayerperspective"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7752"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7755,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions\/7755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}