Acts 2:42

They all gave full attention to the teaching of the apostles and to the common life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Assiduity. This is an old word I recently discovered and have fallen in love with.

• Constant or close attention to what one is doing
• Archaic–constant attentions to someone
• The quality or state of being
• Persistent personal attention
• Constant or close application or effort; diligence; industry
• Devoted or solicitous attentions
• Application, concentration, intentness, constancy, continuity, perseverance

Oh how we need assiduity in our prayer life and Scripture meditation! How many of us have a dedicated time daily, or even weekly, for nothing but God–to focus on nothing but God alone so that we may be able to actually absorb His life? And this through His Scripture, and in prayer.

To just sit with a passage of Scripture with nothing on our mind but listening to the Holy Spirit through it, and what she might want to teach and say to us right now. We often “use” Scripture to bolster what we already know or think (or think we know) or to justify what we’re already doing.

I love the idea of constancy, consistency, and persistence that this word encompasses alongside the close attention and focus.

What do you keep coming back to over and over?

Whatever it is, intentional or not, it is shaping you, I promise.

I wonder what would happen if people who identified themselves as Christians kept coming back to times of prayer, everyday, over and over again.

What if we really took (made) time to sit and pray for each other in assiduity?

To take just 15 minutes a day to do nothing but focus on God through Scripture and in prayer….