Focus: Prayer (1/7)
Day: 09/95
Pathway summary: Being faith filled, fervent, continual, and heartfelt in my expressions, petitions, and supplications to God..
Justification: (2 Timothy 1:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Matthew 6:5-13; Mark 9:23)
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Setup:
So now I'm in the midst of a prayer study. What does scripture say about prayer? What is prayer?
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Prep:
I am going to start with the archetypal "Lord's Prayer" - that is Matthew 6:5-12
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Execution:
I started off praying - and feeling like I was a day late. God helped me have peace about my pacing and focus on the subject. I also kept falling asleep - which is a reminder that prayer (in particular prayer without a purpose save itself) has always been a weakness of mine. Good reminder that this is a fight and an area to shore.
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Day 9 Conclusions / Thoughts
My manual review of the Lord's Prayer brought to mind the areas, for me, which I've noted for a while - no vain repetition, being noticed for prayer is not the point, intimacy matters, how most of the Lord's prayer isn't about us at all - but about giving God glory. And how poorly I tend to model this last part in my own prayers. It is typical of me to basically talk to God and ask Him for stuff - like I'm in prison most of the time but sometimes I get to phone a friend - and the only person I all is God - but the only thing I have to talk about is stuff I want.
I think that's what this week will be for me - being aware and mindful of how often my thoughts are about myself. In fact, this is something I was recently lauding myself for how ... (sadly) ... much I thought about God. I mean seriously, how egocentric do you have to be to give yourself a humility pin?
I've been thinking about the nature of prayer today - how prayer is basically us talking to God. Sometimes it is petitioning; but, it doesn't have to be. And the nature of the dialog is definitively indicative of how we perceive God. If we see Him as a favored uncle, then we'll share some sorts of things and not others. If we see Him as a best friend, we'll share nearly everything - if not everything. If we see Him as a functional spouse (the hardest, arguably, in some ways), we'd literally share everything - and perhaps make it hard (in the best possible way) to become married to a brick-and-mortar human. Because no human can possibly measure up to God. Um, except maybe where hugs are concerned.
So prayer is about our walk with God. It's about our own spiritual growth - and what we even recognize needing to be fixed. It's about another layer of intimacy and being open (and available to be hurt) in a domain in which many of us have no mindful discernment. It's about how every single thing we do, every thought we think, every action we didn't take, and every gesture we convey are all forms of prayer. Which is how one "prays without ceasing" - because otherwise we'd never have the opportunity to stop to breathe.
If nothing else, prayer today has helped me realize how much more I need God.
* The post title is a reminder about how I ought to pray - and how I often do not
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