My Father

For those that do not know, my father is a pastor.
Forgive me for saying this, and I know this is not the point, but i think I am a better pastor than he is. Sure, he has the experience. But I'm more charismatic. I'm smarter. I'm wittier. I'm handsomer.
Haha.

Where I'm going with this post is that there is something my dad does that I need to model myself after more than anything, and that's his prayer life.
My dad has always been praying and fasting as long as I could remember.
He has done 4 40 day fasting. I think if you add up all the days he fasted in his lifetime, it'll be more than 365 days. That's just crazy!

But, because my dad prays, we see God working through him and our family. When we were living in Santa Barbara, due to unnecessary (and unfair) politics, my dad had to resign from the church he was serving. I didn't know that much back then, being only 12 years old. But I'm sure my dad panicked, because he had a family to feed and no income.
I look at my financial situation, and i start getting nervous and anxious, and we ain't even have a kid yet.
So my dad did what he knows best, turn to God in prayer and fasting.
One day, my dad got a phone call from someone in Los Angeles who heard my dad preach at a revival. The person said that he feels he needs to give my father $2000 a month for the next few years.

So when I look at my spiritual life, I see that I am undisciplined and tactless.
I recently read Adam Hamilton's Unleashing the Word and it inspired me to be more prepared for my sermon preparation. And I have. I'm disciplining myself more, and it is showing in me and in our ministry.

I strongly believe that prayer needs to be the most important aspect of my ministry. And I embarrassingly admit that I just don't pray enough.

So for the next 40 days (not including Sundays), with 6 prayer requests, I am heading out to our Early Morning Prayer Service at 530am. Though everything is in Korean, they leave us at least half an hour after the brief message to pray. And in Korean style, everyone prays out loud. You have to experience this to know what I'm talking about.
I went this morning. My body is not used to getting up so early, but it will adjust.

And right now, it's 1230am. I should hurry up and go to bed so that I do not sleep in.

I think this is a good start to becoming more disciplined in my spiritual life.