Praying like Habakkuk

As of late, I have been feeling slightly disconnected from the Lord. Actually, I have had this feeling often in the past. I often tend to get in the mindset that to be pursing the Lord, I have to either read the Bible or pray. The problem with this is that I then read the word or pray simply to fulfill my "obligation" to the Lord, or to check it off my list so that I can feel like I've done my 'christian time' of the day. My time of prayer then often feels like a ritual as I go through my typical prayer routine of asking God for forgiveness for my recent trespasses, thanking Him for the blessings in my life, and then bringing my requests to Him. Something in me keeps nagging at me that this is not enough, and is not how God intended for me to be communicating with Him. This was brought to light tonight when I was reading the book of Habakkuk. It is an obscure book of the Old Testament that does not seem to get much attention. Why was I reading it? Well I stumbled across the new blog of Mark Driscoll and his wife Grace - http://pastormark.tv/ - and found a section written by his daughter Ashley. She said that her favorite book of the bible is Habakkuk because of how the author depicts prayer. Having never read the book before and feeling a pull from the Holy Spirit to read it, I decided it was worth reading. To sum up the book from my perspective (aided by the ESV study bible commentary) Habakkuk is talking to God and is airing his complaints about what he is seeing in Israel and their complete lack of faith in Him, the Lord answering him, followed by praise to the Lord for His steadfastness and faithfulness to His people.

The main thing that struck me in here was how Habakkuk interacts and talks to the Lord. He is talking to God as if he were talking to a friend. He is not following a prayer routine like I often feel like I am, but rather talking to God, actually complaining at times, about what is on his heart. This is what prayer should be like. Our relationship with God should not be a long distance one where we only communicate when things are really good or really bad. Habakkuk is not talking to God because he feels like it is something he needs to do. He is doing it because he cares about the things that God cares about, and has a deep passion to be involved with the things that are of God's heart. Just as you or I would do with someone that we love and care deeply for. I don't communicate with Sarah because I feel like I need to or just when I want something. I do it because I have a passion to know her more, to be in tuned with her hear and know the things that are important to her. This is how I need to be communicating with my heavenly father. He longs deeply for me and to have relationship with me, and I think this is the longing that I have been feeling in my heart. Though it seems foreign to me, the kind of relationship that Habbakuk had with the Lord is the kind that I want, that I am longing for.

I would also like to begin praying more for my brothers and sisters in Christ. A big part of Habakkuk's reason for crying out to God was that he was deeply concerned for his fellow Israelites. I want to pray for you, to care deeply for what is on your hearts and what is happening in your lives. So if you read this, please comment or send me a facebook message or email with what is going on in your life or prayer requests that I can bring before the Lord and  begin to understand His heart for us.

Why the weird title?

Hello, and welcome to the official blog of Matthew and Sarah Martin! We decided to start this blog so that our friends and family can follow us as we move into a new chapter of our lives and move away from most everyone that we know. I have always thought blogs were a bit odd (and quite frankly the name blog makes no sense to me) but I decided this was a really good way to keep our loved ones updated on our goings on.  I also hope that this blog can serve as a spot where I can air out some of my ponderings and ideas as well as share how the Lord is working in my and Sarah's life. I dont claim to be a scholar or a theologist, but I hope that the things that are written here can have an impact on somebody's life for the Kingdom of the Lord.

As you probably know, Sarah and I recently graduated from Penn State where I also received my commission in the U.S. Army. We have spent the summer living and working in the State College Area, but that chapter has come to an end. In about a week, Sarah and I will be leaving our little basement apartment in Bellefonte and making our way down to Ft. Lee Virginia (next to Petersburg) where I will be beginning a 4 month officer's training course on how to be an Ordnance Officer. Sarah will be continuing to work with Penn State Clearinghouse, but with a promotion that allows her to work from home. It was truly a blessing from the Lord that Sarah got offered the position that allowed her to work from home, as the job can come along with us on the move and saves her from having to find an interim job for the next 4 months. Praise the Lord!

Some of you may be wondering what the heck the name of our blog means and why we chose it. Well, I will tell you. I wanted a title that explained what the blog was about and some how had our name in it, since this blog is about us. When I was pondering what I would be writing about, I thought about how life typically goes for Sarah and I. And the two words that popped into my head  were: melodies and mishaps. Those two words can basically sum up life for us. Some days are melodies: good days or times when we are being led by the Holy Spirit, and our day is a melody to the Lord. Other days seem to be full of mishaps: things seem to just not be going right or we just aren't pursuing the Lord like we know we should be. So, with this in mind, I thought that a cool twist to our blog would be that every post would be tagged with either Melody or Mishap as we share how the day was.

So, thank you to those of you who read this and I hope I haven't bored you to sleep. The next post will hopefully be less informational and more conversational. Thanks for stopping by!