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Hi, y’all. Welcome back to Roots & Arrows Homestead.

I have felt it pressed upon my heart lately that someone, somewhere, needs to hear this. So, here it is. In my devotional time this morning, I read through Matthew 6 and I’d like to share some of what I learned here with you. I want to talk today and the importance of prayer. We are called to be in the Word and to open our minds and hearts to God daily in prayer. And yes, how we pray matters.

I don’t get out of the house a whole lot, and I’m not really able to go to the women’s meetings that are usually held during supper time or our kiddos’ bedtime. So, that’s what this space is going to be. At least once a week, I am going to be posting a devotional here, focusing each week on a different chapter of the Bible. This is going to be my way of bringing you along with me on my journey to getting to know Christ a little bit deeper. I encourage you to comment here or find me on Instagram for more devotional/bible content @thatcoffeeandbiblelife. I am all about conversation, so if this post speaks to you, please start a conversation below.

Without further ado, let’s jump in!

Matthew 6:1 says to us, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

We are not to boast about living for God around others for the sole purpose of others seeing us do so. Doing things simply for the attention of doing them is not what being a Christian is about. It’s about our hearts and our thoughts, not about how many people see us doing all the righteous things.

Matthew 6:6 explains a bit about how we should pray. Telling us “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen.”

We are not to pray only in front of other people. We are to cultivate a personal relationship with God and to be on a personal level with someone means to spend time alone with them. I try to make it a habit to pray throughout the day, little quick prayers here and there. I urge you to do the same. But, let me ask you something.

How would your relationship with your best friend look in a year if all you did from now to then was send them a quick text once a week? If you never spent any actual time with them in person or on the phone? In fact, let’s say you never hear back from them at all. If it was just that one-sided text sent their way from your phone every now and then… How would your relationship with that person look in even just 6 months?

My guess is that your relationship with that person would be pretty much non-existent, now, wouldn’t it?

            Y’all. It’s the same with God. My hope is that you will understand this and if you’re not already spending time with Him daily that you will begin to do so.

Matthew 6:33-34 says for us to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself (since) each day has enough trouble of its own.”

            This is easier said than done. How many of us are constantly worried about what lies ahead? I know I can quickly fall into that trap. We need to reel it back in when we notice that we’re focusing too much on things that haven’t happened yet. Some things are out of our control, and us worrying about what we can’t control may as well be the definition of pointless. We need to seek first God and His righteousness. How do we do that? We pray. Read our Bibles. Bible studies are also a great tool but remember that they should not replace actual Bible reading time.

           This chapter in Matthew contains many more points that I believe Christians should pay attention to. But for this post, I hope the ones I’ve mentioned have left you encouraged and ready to take on a new challenge of getting to know God on a deeper level. As I said, I am going to work on getting one devotional out per week. It may be more, but I will try my hardest to make sure it’s not any less!

            As I close out this post, I would like to mention that I am now creating more personal, vlog-style, video content as well as sit-down devotional-style videos over on my Patreon page. This is mostly because we didn’t really feel comfortable putting our children or personal life out there on YouTube for the whole world to see and comment on. Patreon is a community for those who feel led to support our family by supporting me as a work-from-home mom. It is a place for you to get to know me a little better and for you to receive access to the Ebooks and freebies that I’ve been working on. It is a place for those who want to build a genuine community with us. Comments are encouraged and a monthly Q&A is in the works.

So, I hope you would also consider supporting our family on that platform.

Find us here  – bit.ly/rootsandarrowspatreon!

As always, I am so glad you’re here.

-Tori