Praying

So what does prayer look like in your life?!

When I was in college I did an internship at the Lakewood Church of Christ in Lakewood, Colorado with 5 other interns. A requirement of that internship was that once we arrived at the building we had to spend from 8-9 AM in prayer- no Bible reading, no journaling, just prayer. At first that was a major challenge but after 4 months I had become addicted to interacting with God through prayer.

However even now, 23 years later and oh so much more spiritually mature, I still struggle to consistently pray. I have discovered that events and activities in life that push me out of my comfort zone push me to pray. That may be one of the reasons I have enjoyed adopting children from Russia because it is such an out of control situation (sorry to scare you if you are in the midst of an adoption!) that I've got no choice but to pray.

For the last couple of months I have been experimenting with praying the same prayer- Lord, help me to see what you need me to see. What has been really funny about that is that there have been many days that my mood was such that I didn't want to be bothered with what God wanted me to see so I would avoid talking to God so I didn't have to see what he wanted me to see. But there have been lots of other days where God answered my prayer and helped me to see things with his eyes.

A few months ago I heard someone speak who said prayer is not talking to God but listening to God- our talking to God is responding to what he told us. That is revolutionary! Prayer is listening to God?? Hmmm...

So this week at Sugar Grove we are supposed to be praying about someone who is not a part of this church family. As I started focusing on this I realized I was having a really hard time nailing down who this would be so I have shifted my prayer to asking God to help me to recognize who he wants me to pray for. I asked and am now having to listen and wait for what he says.

Another thing I started doing a number of years ago was when I couldn't sleep I would take it as a sign from God that I needed to pray. I have done this for so many years now that when I am half awake in the night I just start praying. This morning around 4 AM I woke up and started talking to God about the day and about who I should be praying for and interacting with him about who I should be praying for. I can't believe this is so challenging...

...just telling God what I need and what I need him to do is so much easier than listening to him.