Pray without ceasing. 1 Thess 5:17 (NLT)
Conversation With God – Prayer Series Part 1
Pray without ceasing? All the time? Never stopping? Literally? Do I have to tell him everything? Doesn’t he know it all anyway?
What is prayer?
I’ve always thought that prayer is simply talking to God like you would a friend. You can talk to him about anything and ask him whatever you need. It’s a conversation; partitioning heaven, asking for healing, seeking answers…
But is this verbal conversation of asking and seeking and telling meant to be a never-ending engagement?
It’s not possible or practical to always be conversing verbally with God; to be locked away in “prayer closets” in what are mostly (honestly) one-sided conversations. Let's be real, we say it's a two-way convo, but how often do you hear God talk back? How often do you listen?
I’m the biggest culprit of using prayer as a way to use all my words up; I spit out EVERYTHING and then I get on with it. It's like me calling my mum and just talking and then hanging up. I’m not trying to make us feel guilty, it's pretty normal that if someone doesn't talk back, the conversation ends. We move on. Our world has become that way. We are so focused on ourselves, in good and bad ways, that after we get out what we have-to/want-to say, we’re done. As a saying (that I really dislike) goes, “our money runs out,” as with the old-school payphone. I do it to my friends all the time.
And if that is happening in our personal lives, what are our conversations with God like? How do they work?
Then there’s the issue of “unanswered prayers.” Prayers for wars to end, for diseases to be healed, for relationships to be restored… for so many things on so many levels. Like I said yesterday, we praise God when we get the car park we want, but what about the wars and the famines and the refugees and the poverty and the abused and the greedy and the abusers and the mercenaries? The hard stuff that’s going on around the world, the desperate prayers and the seemingly non-existent responses… the ones that make God look like a monster and us like pawns in his universal game. Is His part of prayer that part where He says, “yes” or “no?”
Verbal conversation is definitely a part of prayer, but it is not prayer itself. More and more we treat prayer almost like a secret password… a collection of words we use to gain access or garner a response we want/need.
I know I’ve done that.
My children are always on my mind. If I’m not talking with them, I’m thinking about them, looking at them, buying things for them, cooking them food, washing their clothes, wondering how this or that will effect them… we are connected and I’m aware of them all the time. It’s a connection that's carried by blood and love. It’s there in silence and in conversation. The connection and impact we share is beyond verbal.
Prayer is awareness… and more than that, openness to God; to move within His presence and understand that He IS. Prayer doesn’t end when the words cease.
And you can be unceasingly aware of the Divine in your life.
To be continued…
