Prayer life stinks? A short guide on how to talk with God, not to God.
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Credit: IMBeggar
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Chapters:
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Introduction
What Is Prayer?
The Three Ingredients
Presence
Heart
Trust
Preparation
How to Pray
Sorry
Others
Myself
Thanks
Conclusion
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Introduction
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You know that one person you catch on the phone and then only call you to complain or when they need something, and they just spew words at you nonstop and its all about them and its not about you, and you can't even get a word in, and then they just say okay, goodbye.
I think that's how God sometimes feels when we pray.
If you're anything like me, prayer can fall into four categories: dry, broken record, vending machine, or chore obligation. Whatever it is, we're going to stop praying.
It's like when we stop watering the plant, our faith dies. So I just wanted to pass along some thoughts and techniques I've picked up along the way that have helped me break out of those prayers and really helped me take my prayer a little deeper.
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What Is Prayer?
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I'm not going to give you some fancy definition of prayer because I don't think you can capture it with just some words, so instead I'm going to give you a picture. Imagine an empty space. Just your spirit connected to God's.
If I had to put a word to it, I would say it's the mutual emptying or pouring out of one heart into another until the two hearts become one. One of those hearts happens to be God's.
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The Three Ingredients
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Now there are three ingredients necessary in order to make prayer. If one of them is missing, your whole prayer is going to fall apart. I remember them as PHT: presence, heart, and trust.
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Presence
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Have you ever been alone in a room? Maybe you're waiting for something and somebody else enters the room. You may not see them. Maybe they come in behind you, but you're aware of the presence of another person in the room.
This is the starting point of all prayer. Just the awareness of the presence of another person in the room, or else we're just talking to ourselves in the dark. ​
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Heart
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God hears our hearts. Not our words.
Can we all please forget about am I saying the right thing or using the right words and just get down to the core? What's going on in my heart?
If we can speak heart, we can speak God's language, and if we flip that around, we have to learn how to listen to God's heart inside my own heart. Enough for any words or feelings or signs, but in very subtle and gentle inspirations or movements in my heart and those aha moments of clarity in my soul. Once we master this very delicate language of the heart, that's when we're talking to God.
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Trust
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Okay, you really gotta bear with me on this one.
Remember those old diving suits where the guy in the bottom was completely dependent on the guy in the top and the guy in the top had to pump all the air down to the guy in the bottom, and if the guy in the bottom ever wanted to come up, he had to tug the rope and pray that the guy on top would see it and pull him up? Okay, the point is. If you're the guy at the bottom, you have to entrust your entire life into the hands of the guy at the top, even for your very next breath.
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In a similar but totally different way, we have to have that same radical trust in the guy at the top for our very next breath. Now here's where the analogy breaks down because it's not just some guy in the top where I'm trusting our entire lives too. It's the God of the entire universe who loves you and me in a way that well we could never possibly comprehend.
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Preparation
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Now it's very important to prepare before we pray because, remember, we're in the presence of the God of the universe. Keep this in mind. To the degree I make myself present to God. To that same degree, God will make himself present to me. Think about that.
So I like to find a quiet, dark spot. Feet on the ground, palms open, ready to receive. Posture is important because our body is the manifestation of our soul. So if our bodies open, our souls open.
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Now our heart or our soul is spiritual, so this is our doorway, so to speak, into the spiritual, and that's where we're going to meet God. So the first thing we got to do was get into that room. The inner room, which is our hearts, and close the doors to everything else.
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How to Pray:
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Let's start with a simple destressing technique. Focus on all the noise in your head. All the stress in your gut. Anything that's weighing heavy on you. Imagine it all like a red smoke collecting in the centre of your chest, and just keep taking deep breaths and exhaling it all out. Just keep focusing on your breath and picture the smoke passing through your lips.
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Next, imagine the room you're in. The environment all around you, the chair you're sitting in, even your own body just fading away. There's no world right now, so none of those worries are connected to it. It's just your heart in an infinite empty void.
Now invite him. Just like we know when somebody else enters the room, be aware of His presence in the room. I can't stress this enough, but this is not about a feeling; it's about knowing and trust. There are no words here; our mind is silent. It's just my heart and His and nothing else.
Now we can just sit here forever, not say a word, and just be. This is actually the deepest form of prayer, but if you want to say something, I can't tell you what it is, but I find it helps to have a little structure.
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Sorry
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Where I usually start is, dear Lord, I'm sorry for...
Because remember, we are on sacred land here, so search your heart for any of those dark sports, or have I fallen short with God with the people around me? What are the blocks getting in the way between me and him?
If you don't really know what to say here, ask him to show you, and he will over time, and please just lose this idra of an angry God who's so disappointed in me. Hes literally the dad and the prodigal son who runs out to meet us.
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Others
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Next, let's pray for each other.
We're all inferring something on the inside, on the outside, or both. Think big; there are no limitations. Think of all of us who are struggling out there. The sick and dying are those of us who have lost hope. Think of the overall balance of good and evil in our world in our hearts.
I don't think it's really important about what we say because he already knows. Its about, do I mean it, and do I think He can do something about it? Love and faith are what He can work with, not words.
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Myself
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In the last place, we pray for ourselves.
Jesus says very tenderly, Tell me your fears as simply as you can. Tell me what you need. Tell me what you want. Tell me about your sorrows and your joys. Just pour it all out. Now I've found the more we tell them about our fears, the more those fears lose their teeth until we're just not afraid of them anymore.
It's important to know the difference between what I want and what I need. Remember, Jesus is way more concerned about our spiritual welfare than our material welfare, so I'll speak for myself here, but sometimes I think we get all wrapped up in temporal welfare.
Jesus says seek first me, and then I'll give you all that other stuff. So after I asked him for all the things I think I need, I usually just said, Lord, you know what I need better than I do. That's what I want.
After I ask Him for all the things I think I want, I say. Lord, if this desire is from you, then let it be done. If not, then please remove it from my heart.
Either way, we're covered, and the more we do this sincerely, the more we're going to find there's really only one thing I need and want.
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Thanks
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This is probably the most important part. We just sit and say thank you.
You don't have to use fancy words; just say it in your own words from your heart and mean it, and then I close simply by saying, Lord, I know you can do all things.
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Conclusion
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If we're being honest, sometimes we just don't want to pray. A lot has to do with those prayer categories, but these are just the symptoms. I think what it really comes down to, and believe me, I'm talking to myself here, is do I really love God? Do I really believe he's a living person I can talk to who hears me and who really loves me?
Because if I do, then what better thing could I possibly be doing with my time on this tiny little planet than spending a few moments every day hanging out and talking with the God of the universe? The king of peace is the perfection of everything that I want, that I need, and that I am searching for.
If you struggle with these, it's okay; we all do, but then that's what we take to our prayer. Open and honest. So try this for a week and you can make it your own, but I guarantee you that at some point you will hear him somewhere deep inside your soul, and when you do remember that, because that's what we build of, and then the rest is just a giant live affair.
Where we're no longer talking just to God but with God.
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