Prayer Series 3

Is your prayer life expanding and deepening?  I hope it is!  These notes to you about your prayer life are accompanied by my prayers that you will wholeheartedly devote time to developing a conscious relationship with God (William Barry's definition of prayer); a relationship that is real and evident every moment of your day giving you the awareness and experience of God with you always. 

          How can we pay attention and be more aware of God’s presence, his voice, his love?  So that when we see, hear, feel God’s presence we can receive openly and respond willingly, freely, and you know what I’m going to say…..joyfully with gratitude!  I am going to offer some ways in which we can more fully attune ourselves to God in our daily living.

            Take some time for quiet every day.  You can take short spells of quiet for yourself.  Be still (Psalm 46:10 …and know that I am God), breathe deeply a few times, relax your body, and be quiet.  Receive your breath as the breath of life, the very Spirit of God.  Claim this time as quiet time with God.  You only need a minute or two, but you’ll want MORE once you begin to make this a habit.  We need times in our days to turn off, cut off the noises of the world.  We need time in our days to silence all the demanding, noisy, negative voices in our minds (including our own).  How can we hear God, if all other voices and noises are drowning God’s voice out?  How can we listen for God’s presence with us if we are not quiet enough to hear the still, small voice of God?   God’s voice can be heard in the stillness.  It may not sound like someone speaking to you, but then again it might.  Rest assured that when we quiet ourselves and quiet the noises of our minds and the world God will meet you in the quiet.

          Pray without ceasing.  I have mentioned the Breath Prayer before.  This is a prayer to reconnect with God as needed throughout our day.  While inhaling, silently call upon God/Jesus/Holy Spirit; while exhaling offer your desire.  For example:  Breathe in saying, “Rock and Refuge.”  Breathe out saying, “You are my strength.”  Another example:  Breathe in saying, “Jesus, Teacher.”  Breathe out saying, “Teach me patience.”  Another:  Breathe in saying, “Spirit of Truth.”  Breathe out saying, “I need your guidance.”  The possibilities are endless and you speak the prayer according to your needs at the time. 

          When you encounter the scriptures (devotional, Sunday school lesson, Bible study, sermon passage, etc.) be alert and expect a personal word for your life.  Whenever and wherever you hear the Word, engage with it!  Open yourself to it.  Take it with you and spend time reflecting on it; meditating on it; praying with it.  God communicates God’s self to us in the scriptures, particularly, through the person and work of Jesus as we come to know Jesus in the gospels.  Scripture is the written word that comes to life by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  We can hear God’s voice through our attention to the scriptures. 

          God is love.  God is truth.  God is good.  When you feel loved by someone; God is there.  When you experience truth through someone else; God is there.  When people are good to you; this is God.  God communicates with us through people.  Do you remember the children’s story where the child, in the bed alone, who will not be comforted during the storm by the words, “Don’t worry, God is with you?”  Just as God came to us in the flesh we need to experience God’s love in the flesh.  The child cried out, “I know God is with me, but right now I need love with skin on!”  Look for God’s love coming to you through others. Ask for what you need, like the frightened child did!  Because God dwells within us we should be on the lookout for God in everyone we meet…that’s a challenging thought, isn’t it?  I have asked myself many times, “God, how are you coming to me through her/him?  And how are you inviting me to respond?” 

          All these practices will make us more attune to God’s presence, God’s voice and God’s love.  Tuning in to God, however, is not just a matter of being more aware, although it IS that.  The “more” of it is that God is an initiating God who wants a response (as expected in a conscious relationship).  There is always the question, “How am I to respond?”  We then realize that our responses to others are also responses to God. May your prayers draw you closer and closer to God, who loves you and wants you to know it!! The final in this series will be ways that we communicate with God.

 

Peace.