A First Step Toward Praying Deliberately

God acts, in and around us, whether we ask Him to or not.  He is a God who initiates.  He initiated all
of creation, and He initiates blessing upon blessing in our lives every day simply because He loves us.

But some of His blessings only come when we ask. James says, "You have not because you ask not." (James 4:3) This is an amazing truth.  Through prayer, we have been given the privilege of initiating blessings, for ourselves and for others. But we often (usually?) treat prayer so lightly that our prayers become ineffective.

The kinds of prayers that result in blessings are deliberate and intentional.  Too often my prayers are not that kind. I need to be constantly reminded that the great privilege He has given us in prayer calls for a consciously thoughtful approach to His throne.

When I come to God's throne deliberately and thoughtfully, He asks me questions that help me focus my prayers.  The first question He asks is, "To Whom are you praying?" Answering this question is the first step toward a more effective prayer time.

Praying With God-Awareness

The answer is obvious--so obvious that our awareness of the One we are coming to can get lost in our coming if we're not careful.  God--the reality of his presence and the beauty of his character--must be our focus in prayer.  

If I come to him with my mind full of the things I want to ask for, my head down, and my focus on myself, I'm not really praying. I'm just talking to myself.  Expecting Him to act on my requests is like expecting the caboose to push the train.  It just doesn't work.  Effective praying begins with an awareness of God's presence, His power, and His great compassion for us.

A focus on God does not come naturally.  It must be deliberately sought and deliberately maintained as we pray. Our visible surroundings will overwhelm invisible realities if we don't consciously remind ourselves of what matters when we pray, and what matters first and foremost is the One we are speaking with. 

I find praying on my knees helps to keep me focused on God.  It puts my body in the proper position before Him and it keeps me more aware of His presence.  When I'm on my knees, the rest of the world dissolves and I'm better able to visualize (in a proper way) the reality of His presence.

If you'd like an aid to becoming more God-aware in your prayers, here's a helpful one online.  Try listening to the first seven minutes of this video on Living Still.  Seven minutes is a long time!  It will be difficult to settle into this kind of listening.  But it will lead you into God's presence in a delightful way if you let it.

May we come to Him with a deliberate awareness of who He is.
May we be still, and know what it means to that He is God.
(Psalm 46:10)

The Mystery of Growth

When I pray about a problem or a struggle, too often I find myself expecting God to simply step in and fix things.  I expect the fixing to be immediate, and I expect it to be painless and effortless on my part.  I watch for a flash of lightning at the end of my prayer that either gives me the solution or whips me out of the situation I'm unhappy with.

This flash of lightning rarely comes.

I've been working in my garden this spring.  I don't know what I'm doing.  I've never had a green thumb.  But I figure since I have some space now and extra time on my hands I might as well see if I can do something constructive with it.

But it's discouraging. 

I planted nasturtium seeds, sweet peas, and marigolds, which I've heard keep out the garden pests, but none of them have sprouted. 

I put in three tomato plants two weeks ago and they haven't grown an inch.

Other people have zucchinis already and I only have wisps of green shoots just starting to push up through the cold soil. 

My rhubarb is spindly and my pumpkin plants have maybe three leaves each. 

Yesterday I got frustrated and went to the garden store.  I bought a hanging tomato plant loaded with blossoms, and a dozen or so potted flowers already lavishly adorned with pretty pink and purple flowers.  My deck looks lovely. 

I plunked eighteen pre-grown marigolds down in my vegetable garden, on top of the seeds that never sprouted and in the middle of a row of carrot seeds I'd forgotten my grandson had planted a week ago.   The garden looks better too.  At least there's some color now.

I'm not giving up on the seeds, mind you.  Every day I'll go out and check to see if they've come up.  But some of the enthusiasm has dampened.  I don't know if there will be enough left to motivate me to pull the weeds, which are flourishing, when they begin to smother the rows of chard and arugula.

But I suspect there's a lesson here. It has occurred to me that God's creation of the world, and of us, was not simply an event.  It was, and is, a progression of events.  Some of the events are so small and seemingly insignificant we don't even notice them.  These small events overlap and run together so mysteriously we can't fathom how they are working, and sometimes it looks like they aren't.  

But they are working.  Growth inevitably happens, in the soil and in our lives. 

It's another great and wondrous godly mystery.

Instead of whining that He's not answering my prayers when I see no immediate change or feel no instant relief, I need to choose to believe things are happening, even when I can't see them.  I need to look for the little rays of hope and light that He might be trying to give me in the process--the green shoots just beginning to poke their little heads through the soil.

And I need to act on the rays of light he gives--to participate with Him in the working out of the process.  I need to be willing to change, and to let the process run its course in me.

God, please help me with the green thumb business.  Help me to trust in the mystery of growth, to remember to water the garden, and be motivated to pull the weeds.  And help me to remember where my grandkids have planted their little seeds so I don't mess up the process of their learning about growing things.

Listening to God

Do you ever wonder how to hear from God?  

What kinds of things He might be wanting to say to you?  

Or if what you think you're "hearing" is actually Him?

I just read, in my quiet time this morning, several chapters in Charles Stanley's book, How to Listen to God.  I highly recommend it for any Christian who longs for intimacy with God.  It's full of practical, godly advice from a humble, saintly man who is greatly experienced in hearing from God.

Pick any one of these chapters.  Read, and you'll be blessed:

ONE:  Is God Still Talking?

TWO:  God's Goal in Communicating

THREE:  How God Gets Our Attention

FOUR:  Identifying the Voice of God

FIVE:  Factors That Determine How God Communicates

SIX:  Are You Listening?

SEVEN:  Sitting Before the Lord

EIGHT:  Your Spiritual Mind-Set

NINE:  Hindrances to Hearing

TEN:  Listening and Obeying

ELEVEN:  The Life That Listens--A Well-Built Life

Or hear Charles Stanley speak on the subject in an engaging 7-minute Youtube video where he talks about teaching his children how to listen to God.

  

Where and How do you picture God when you pray? 

Charles Stanley says that when we pray, "we come before a Father who wraps His arms around us in a loving embrace."  (How to Listen to God, p. 69)

That's where He is, and what He's doing, right now, in relation to you.  

This is what He is saying to you today.