I'm fascinated with the idea of prayer. It seems like such a wonderful gift to me. That our Heavenly Father desires for us to come before Him with all that we have and lay at His feet is astounding to me. He doesn't just let us do it - He wants us to. Lay it all down - our fears, doubts, sorrows, hopes, joys, celebrations, tribulations, weaknesses. How to parent, how to have a Godly marriage, how to succeed in work, in school, how to love Him and love people, how to be more compassionate, how to choose Jesus - bring it all before Him. Even something as simple as, "Holy Spirit, would you help me? Would you give me the right thoughts?"
It is our communion with Him.
I don't know where this post is going, but I've had a lot of important realizations about prayer in the past few months. It's not designated to morning and night, to mealtimes and test days. It's the breathing in and out, the every moment awareness of the presence of God. I believe it cures all - and not because we always get what we pray for, but because we learn to come before our God in dependency and humility and we learn to trust. We learn to trust in the sovereignty of God, in the love of the Father who desires to give His children good gifts. We learn to trust in the work of Jesus.
I'm not a passive movie watcher - I'm an active one - and there's a moment in the movie "Signs" when Mel, the embittered preacher who walked away from his church after losing his wife, says defiantly, fearfully, emphatically, "I am not wasting one more minute on prayer! Not one more minute!" Fifteen minutes later, his asthmatic son on the brink of losing breath, he offers up a prayer to God - "Don't do this to me again. Not again. I hate you."
And I think this is the beauty of real and honest prayer. Too often we program prayer to be a recitation of our day or a 'thank you for the food' type thing. Prayer becomes something we've always done because we're taught in church to do it. But the life, the breath, the honest prayer - that's the soul prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. We don't have to disguise our pain or disguise our sin or use discreet words to make it sound better. We can wrestle and use words like 'help' and 'struggle' and we can cry and be intimate with the Father. And that is the pure beauty of prayer. We are given the grace to boldly approach the throne with confidence, not shaking in shame or hiding in a facade, but in a humble realness that shouts trust in the grace and mercy of our Father.
I think it's easy to forget. At least for me, it's always a critical analysis. When prayer is selfish, when prayer is fake, when prayer forgets the Father, when prayer is forgotten. In a rough season a few months ago, I spent a lot of time journaling prayers and words to God. They were honest and they were raw and they, at first, felt.. weird. Coming from a recovering programmed pray-er, admitting to God that you're angry can feel wrong. But faith isn't based on feelings and let me tell you, the release of burden and the peace that transcends understanding - those are real concepts and they covered me. The breaking down of walls and the covering of the Father who loves me and the vulnerability to my Creator. People, the answer is prayer. Come before the Father. Cry 'Abba Father'!
God is not a friend who will gossip about what we've said. He's not a disappointing source of anger. God is not neutral about our existence. He loves us with a fiercely passionate love and when we understand what God thinks about when He thinks about us, it changes the way we pray. And when we are honest before Him in every moment, we worship Him and the work His Son did.
Make prayer a priority and pursue it.
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