“Children do not find it difficult or complicated to talk to their parents, nor do they feel embarrassed to bring the simplest need to their attention. Neither should we hesitate to bring the simplest requests confidently to the Father.” –Richard Foster
Prayer is often misused, abused, and treated more like a bartering system with God than a moment by moment, daily conversation with our Father in Heaven. It’s something that we’re all guilty of, but if we are to grow, we need to adjust and change our perception and importance of prayer in our lives. Brother Lawrence once said on the topic of prayer; “One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the presence of God; and being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.”
Misconceptions of Prayer:
We are obligated to pray.
Prayer should not be considered an obligation. If we feel as if it is our duty to pray and that we are forced into prayers of penitence, petition and supplication then we are more inclined to just go through the motions with little or no true significance or meaning. When prayer becomes routine and obligatory we lose the true significance of communing and fellowshipping with our God who greatly desires a moment by moment inclusion in our day.
Prayer is like a fire alarm.
We only pull the fire alarm in a building if we are in great need of help and for the fire department to come out and extinguish a fire. We sometimes treat our prayer life like this as well. We think that God is only available to us in times of need. It’s like the quote “as long as there are tests there will be prayer in school”. We often treat our communications with God as if they are for emergencies only. We pray prayers like; “Lord if you get me out of this situation I will…,” and the fire alarm of prayer is pulled and we expect God to honor our cries for help when our discipline of prayer in all seasons is nonexistent.
We have to pray in King James Vocabulary.
Believe it or not, God doesn’t want our big and lofty words when we pray. He doesn’t require of us to speak eloquently by using words like Thee and Thou and speaketh…if you don’t talk like that to your friends and family then why would you need to speak to God in that manner? Of course we are to be reverent before God, but that doesn’t mean we need to have all the right words and pray with intricately crafted archaic speech. God knows who you are, He knows where you come from and He will meet you where you are at in your life right now. He doesn’t need us to speak in a way that is foreign to us. Simply communicating to Him as we would our friends and family is what is best and most sincere when it comes to prayer.
The Facts on Prayer:
We need to discipline our minds and hearts when we pray! Prayer is more of a constant conversation with our God than just about kneeling at our bedsides before bed time. He wants us to talk to Him and include Him in our daily routines through a moment by moment relationship to Him. Prayer can and will become much, much deeper when we train our thoughts and surrender who we are to Him with every opportunity that we get. It might be one of the most difficult things that ever do, many times we will fail, yet if and when we train our thought processes to constantly consider God in our conversations, actions and decisions, our perspectives, priorities and motives will drastically change! Prayer is a mighty and powerful thing that connects the finite with the Infinite! When we can find true discipline within our thought processes to consider the Almighty in every aspect of our lives, our spiritual walk and relationship to Him will greatly deepen and we will wonder how we ever lived without this deep connection to our Father in Heaven.
Pastor's Ponderings 