Prayer – For Real
His mercies never end, they are new EVERY morning… – Lamentations 3:22-23
It’s a new week. *sigh* Relief! Last week was one horrid experience after another. Thank you for praying and listening…The worst is over (hopefully) but the trauma remains…
I’ll tell you what though, I am extremely grateful of the power and refuge of prayer. About a year ago my pastor did a series of sermons on prayer. Normally his preaching is fairly formal (for a Southern Baptist church) and straight-forward. Lots of truth packed into a neatly formulated thirty-minutes. The sermons on prayer, however, were different. They were from his core. They were filled with emphasize from a personal experience that he had genuinely been having. After years of hearing this man preach and being affected by his personal integrity and profound words, the depth of his yearning for us to know what real prayer is like was more moving than any sermon I can remember. He was having an experience in his own prayer life with the Almighty God, and he just wanted us to have a taste. It was like he was saying; “My beloved Franklin Heights, you’ve GOTTA TRY THIS!”
At that same point in time I began listening to Jason Upton’s amazing worship music as often as I could. He is a worship leader that a non-charismatic southern baptist girl like me can appreciate. An appropriate mix of passion, emotion, and God-focus. His music sent me to my knees and when listening to it, my heart can’t help but be turned upward and let the world stop so I can just be intimate with my Maker.
Along with that combination of urgent instruction and lovely praise came burdens that I had either been carrying for too long and was more than ready to surrender completely or new reasons to approach the throneroom with a heavy heart. The mix became a clear signal: Lindsey, you need to learn how to pray – for real.
Real prayer is intimate and deep and should be time-consuming. It should be real relationship building with the Lord, tuning out the voices, thoughts, clock, and tasks at hand.
Try it, you will never be the same.
prayer is something that i’ve yet to wrap my heart and mind around. dang. i don’t even have a good excuse.
sometimes – and ONLY sometimes – when i’m reading my bible and i see a verse that strikes me, i’ll pray that i’ll be like that verse, or God will speak to me in that way, or that i’m thankful that He is such and so. but only sometimes.
and i don’t have a good excuse.
Hmmm, word of warning, Mandy. It took some rocky circumstances to turn my attention toward prayer…I recommend some sort of fast to give you time to focus on learning what real prayer is. The irony is…prayerlessness is addictive, but so is prayerfulness…
Wow. Good stuff. Does he have a link to that online to listen to?
You know, the asepcts of prayer are ever-changing for me…just like communication with my spouse. In dating, it was intentional, topic driven, filled with thoughts and questions and planning. In time, just the silence on the line became what I enjoyed the most. The intimacy of not wanting to hang up. Then, maturity grew, and just being in the same house, doing our thing, talking around and about kids…talking through proceedures, tasks, projects carries the same intimate weight.
My prayer life is much the same. It has changed as I’ve gone through the seasons you mention. Those times rooted me somehow. It’s all not just staying “deep” for me now…it’s coming to a place of functional depth. I had to start praying, “God, I need you near, I need your help. I know you are real and you help, but please don’t shake my core…I have responsibilities to my hsuband and my children to be attentive. Be near…but please come softly.”
Interesting stuff to me. Thanks for sharing.