I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the LORD Almighty.

2 Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV)

God is more interested in who we are than what we do.

Often, we may place public ministry life before personal prayer life. We must realise that growing a strong and healthy relationship with God is essential to our spiritual growth and well-being. Ministry flows worship. We won't enjoy serving God unless we enjoy loving God.

When Jesus taught us to pray, He wanted us to know that we belong to God and all that we do flows from our Father's perfect love and grace towards us. Some of us may find praying difficult or guilt-inducing because we don't appreciate prayer as the sheer pleasure and joy of just being in God's presence.

We need to shift our perspective from seeing prayer as a way to communicate our needs to God to a more authentic conversation that involves sharing our hearts between a parent and a child.

Prayer has the ability to increase our love and faith for God and to enable us to enjoy the gracious gift of true rest. What does it mean to rest? Rest is realising that we have much more of God’s ability inside us to carry out God's will than we could ever ask for or conceive. Unfortunately, we tend to define ourselves by how busy we are rather than how rested we are. That is driven by a slavish mentality rather than a love for the Father.

The true expression of being sons and daughters of our most loving Father is evidenced by how restful we are on the inside. Rest always produces more than needed. The Apostle Paul had this experience.

But whatever I am now, it is all because God poured out his special favour on me—and not without results. For I have worked harder than any of the other apostles; yet it was not I but God who was working through me by his grace.

1 Corinthians 15:10 (NKJV)

If serving in ministry causes you to drift further from God, it is no longer for God but for self. Protect your time with God from the urgent pressures and demands of ministry. You are thus liberated from the idolatry of busyness and brought into the stillness of God's peace in all that you do.