Prayer

I admit...my prayer life is not as it should be. Maybe you have this spiritual life all figured out, but I certainly don't.

I tend to become repetitious in my prayers or skip over it entirely. I have been going through a Bible Study with my small group called "When God Speaks" by Henry Blackaby and we are studying through "Prayer" this week. I am only a day into it and the Lord is already kicking my tail! I am reminded how important it is, and necessary to maintain a relationship with the Almighty God. The first words in today's study read, "Prayer is a relationship, not an activity." I too often add it to my "to do" list at the end of my ritualistic quiet time in the mornings. You know me, I sit in the SAME spot every day while drinking my coffee at the SAME time each day, so my time with the Lord often becomes something I just DO. And prayer is tacked on to the beginning and end of it. But do I TRULY converse with Him? I often say my quick prayers and never allow time for Him to speak to me. You know that "Be still and know I am God" part, yep...that is hard for me to do. My prayer life is often not a conversation, it's a one sided speech (my grocery list per se). I don't know about you but I don't want to do all the talking in my relationship with Him. If I remember correctly, HE is GOD, not me. So why do I want to sit and listen to myself babble (Matthew 6:7)??? After all, "The purpose of prayer is not to influence God, but to change us." He DEFINITELY doesn't need me to influence Him, and I DEFINITELY need the changing part.

Oh how I desire for my relationship with Him to be all that it can be. I don't want to just spit out my prayers, do my duty, or exercise a discipline, but I want to converse with the Almighty God. And that is how he designed it to be. If I could just get that in my thick skull.

Just a testimony from the past for those of you who are out there and aren't sure if this prayer thing works. A couple of years back, Jay was in Zimbabwe, Africa with a group of high school seniors and I woke up randomly in the middle of the night and the Lord prompted me to pray for this specific girl in the group. And I will admit, God does NOT randomly wake me in the middle of the night to pray so this was random and it was an overwhelming feeling too so I KNEW it was of Him. I prayed for her and didn't know why and then went back to sleep. When I talked to Jay that next day I told him about it and he replied with, "You will never guess what happened today." He proceeded to tell me that their group had been horseback riding and this girl had fallen off her horse and hit her head and had a small concussion at that EXACT moment that the Lord had woken me up in my sleep to pray for her. I think I got chills all over my body and even cried when we were talking about it on the phone. I still get chills when I think about it actually. Prayer does work and I know that. Sometimes I just think I have this thing called life all figured out and can handle it all on my own (yea I am a control freak). But I don't have it figured out...not even a little bit and need Him every step of the way.

"Taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him." Psalm 34:8